By Prensa Latina,
Islamabad : Around 7,000 Islamic rebels died, were wounded or arrested during the offensive that the Pakistani army started in the conflicting northeastern tribal regions of the Swat Valley in July 2007, official sources said on Monday.
According to those statistics, 2,825 anti-government rebels have died up to the present, 1,400 resulted wounded and 2,774 have been arrested by the security forces.
In that period, 611 troops died and more than 145 were wounded, according to a report by the Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) news agency, which quoted a military spokesman.
Those numbers also include 88 suicidal attacks, 769 explosions with improvised explosive devices, 520 armed attacks, 128 physical attacks, and 79 ambushes, all perpetrated by the rebels.
The source said a total of 1,188 people died in those actions and 3,209 others were wounded.
Among those killed in the suicidal attacks, there are 174 army members, 45 border guards, 145 police agents and 847 civilians.
Just in the last three weeks, around 1,000 armed insurgents died in Bajaur district in army operations, according military reports published in Islamabad.
Communiques by the military command said the troops seek to protect the population’s life and properties, and dispel the perception that the government had lost control in Bajaur, a locality that borders with Afghanistan in the Kunar region.
A UN High Commissioner for Refugees (ACNUR) report, published in Kabul said around 20,000 Pakistani citizens left their territories for neighboring Afghanistan, faced with violence in the border area.