Soldiers on Wednesday took back control of the town of Matta where the militants had renamed the police station the "Taliban station" and then expelled militants from Khawazakhela on Thursday, army statements said. "Local people of Matta have greatly welcomed the arrival of security forces," the statement said.
Security forces also dismantled a prison set up by militants inside a girls' primary school in Matta and freed dozens of people, an intelligence official told AFP. Residents said Swat was under a total curfew and troops backed by helicopter gunships were marching through different towns and villages. Provincial government spokesman Amjad Iqbal said soldiers were on Thursday securing the headquarters of radical cleric Maulana Fazlullah, the militant leader campaigning for the imposition of Sharia law.
Officials said last week that they had recaptured Fazlullah's sprawling base in a religious school in the town of Imam Dehri and it was not clear why further operations were necessary there. There are reports that Fazlullah's deputy, Maulana Shah Dauran, had been killed in a gunbattle late Wednesday, Iqbal said.