By DPA,
Islamabad : One policeman was killed and two more were injured Friday in a roadside bombing that targeted a security convoy in Pakistan’s restive north-western district of Swat, officials said.
The explosion occurred when the security forces were heading towards a suspected hideout of Islamic militants in the Kabal area.
“A police vehicle was completely destroyed in the bombing,” a security official said on condition of anonymity. “But the security operation continued and 14 suspected militants were rounded up.”
The attack came a day after the pro-Taliban militants killed a paramilitary soldier and injured one more during a raid on a security check post.
Violence swept through Swat late last year when the military launched an offensive against a local radical cleric, Maulana Fazlullah, whose men took control of key towns in the district and enforced self-defined Mohammedan laws.
The firefight between the militants and government troops continued for several months, leaving hundreds of people dead.
A fragile ceasefire was reached in March after the newly-elected government in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) offered peace talks with the pro-Taliban fighters in Swat and tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.
But the process was halted April 28 when a spokesman of militant umbrella organisation Tehrik Taliban Pakistan announced it would suspend negotiations with the authorities.
Since then the militants in Swat and other areas have renewed their assaults on the security forces.