"After a tip from an informant, the forces surrounded the house of Nisar Ahmed to arrest him but he resisted and started firing on troops," said Major Mushtaq Khan, a spokesman for the army-run Swat Media Centre. "During the retaliatory fire, Nisar Ahmed was killed and his son was arrested," he told AFP, adding that no soldiers were injured in the exchange. Another security official based in the area said that the pre-dawn operation was launched in Matta town, about 25 kilometres (15 miles) north-west of Mingora, the main hub in the one-time tourist paradise of Swat valley.
The Swat Taliban were not immediately available to confirm the death - their spokesman Muslim Khan is in military custody - but residents in Matta told AFP by telephone that they had seen Baba's corpse. "We have seen his dead body. It was later taken by the security forces," a resident said, requesting anonymity for fear of militant reprisals. Fazlullah remains at large with a 50-million-rupee (600,000 dollars) bounty on his head. In September, the military arrested four of his top aides in a sweep following a military assault to purge the Taliban threat in the valley.