Guns, not golf, as Pakistani army battles militants

By Robert Birsel

KABAL, Pakistan (Reuters) - No tourists are hitting balls down the fairways of the once-peaceful Kabal golf course in Pakistan's Swat valley these days.

Quite the contrary, the army has taken over the course as it battles Islamist militants who had tried to impose Taliban-style rule in the valley in North West Frontier Province.

A helicopter gunship is at the ready on one of the brown fairways while on another, big guns have been dug in, their long barrels pointing towards distant mountains.

"They have killed so many militants," says Major Mohammad Shafique of his battery of six 130 mm artillery pieces that can fire a shell a distance of 33 km (20 miles).

The Swat valley, about five hours drive on mountain roads from Islamabad, had been a popular tourist destination with guides describing the sprawling and scenic golf course, built by a former princely ruler, as a golfer's paradise.

But this year well-armed militants appeared and began to enforce their brand of hardline sharia law.

Led by a young, charismatic cleric called Fazlullah, the militants, many, like Fazlullah, believed to be veterans of Afghan fighting, attacked the police, closed girls schools and video shops and tried to destroy Buddhist ruins.

The police disappeared when challenged and soon the militants held sway over a string of small towns along the Swat river, including Kabal.

Last month, the army launched an offensive which the commander in charge said had succeeded in clearing the militants from most of the valley, sending them and Fazlullah running into remote valleys to the northwest.

"We're striking them wherever they are," Major General Nasser Janjua told a group of reporters in Mingora, the valley's main town, on Saturday.

Janjua said his troops had killed 290 of the militants, who he said were supported by the Taliban and al Qaeda, and captured 143 in the offensive involving 20,000 troops. He said only six of his men had been killed.

"The threat is scattered, the threat is diluted," he said at his sand-bagged headquarters set up in a government guest house.

"I CHASE HIM"

President Pervez Musharraf cited rising militant violence when he declared a state of emergency on November 3.

But critics say Musharraf, who until last month was army chief, has been preoccupied with his bid to secure another term in office and failed to act quickly enough to stop the spread of militancy from remote Afghan border lands to Swat and even to Islamabad.