Taliban kidnap 30 Pakistani policemen in clashes

Taliban fighters kidnapped 30 Pakistani policemen after a day-long siege and fierce battles in the northwest Swat Valley, a regional police official said Wednesday.

Thousands of Taliban laid siege to the police station in the area of Shamozai on Tuesday. The army was mobilized to rescue the policemen and break the circle of Taliban rebels surrounding the building, security officials said.

Clashes continued throughout Tuesday but as dusk fell, the operation had to be suspended. During the night Taliban broke into the police office, kidnapped the officers and then blew up the building, police commander Dilawar Khan told AFP.

Pakistan, under massive Western pressure to clamp down on extremists, has stepped up an offensive in an attempt to wrest back control of the Swat Valley, which locals say has fallen to the insurgents.

Security and intelligence officials said 50 militants were killed in military operations across the area from late Monday to Tuesday.

Until two years ago, the Swat Valley, only 130 km (80 miles) northwest of the capital, Islamabad, was a jewel in the crown of Pakistani tourism, frequented by foreign and local holidaymakers escaping to the mountains for skiing in winter or more refreshing climes in the punishing heat of summer.

But the region descended into chaos in mid-2007 after radical cleric Maulana Fazlullah embarked on a terrifying campaign to enforce a Taliban-style Sharia law, prompting thousands of people to flee.

Caught between the military and the Taliban, tens of thousands of residents have fled from the valley.

NATO supply truck torched

Elsewhere in the northwest, militants torched 10 trucks laden with supplies for NATO troops after closing a key route into Afghanistan by blowing up a bridge in northwest Pakistan, officials said.

The containers destroyed near the town of Landi Kotal had been unloaded at the Afghan border and were empty, the officials said.

NATO and U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan are hugely dependent on Pakistan for their supplies and equipment, with an estimated 80 percent of their gear transported by land from the neighboring country.

Militants in the rugged tribal area have staged spectacular attacks in recent months on NATO supply depots outside Peshawar, torching hundreds of vehicles and containers destined for foreign troops in Afghanistan.