Pakistan encourages civilians to flee Swat

MINGORA, Pakistan, May 9 (UPI) -- The Pakistani government urged civilians to flee the Swat Valley, lifting a curfew to make evacuation possible as the Army takes on the Taliban.

Officials said civilians would be given seven hours, beginning at 6 a.m. Sunday, to get out of the valley, the BBC reported. Thousands of people were believed to be trapped by the fighting.

The government agreed in February to allow the Taliban to impose Shariah law in the Swat Valley. Taliban advances into neighboring areas closer to the capital led to the current offensive.

In a full-scale offensive Friday, Army spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said, Pakistan's army killed at least 143 Taliban militants in a 24-hour period, Karachi News.Net reported.

"We are feeling so helpless. We want to go but can't as there is a curfew," Sallahudin Khan, a resident of Mingora, Swat's main city, said in a telephone interview with Dawn, an English-language newspaper in Karachi.

Khan and his family tried to flee Friday but the roads out of Mingora were jammed with refugees, Dawn reported Saturday.

An estimated 200,000 civilians tried to flee Friday, joining another 300,000 who had already left, U.N. officials said.

The Pakistani army has deployed an estimated 15,000 troops to roust 4,000 to 5,000 Taliban militants in Swat.

"In my area, there is no government, it's all Taliban," said Ibrahim Khan, a farmer in Matta town. "They are in full control."