Taliban ousted from Pakistan mountain pass

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Soldiers sent to halt a Taliban advance toward Pakistan's capital fought their way over a mountain pass yesterday, killed at least 14 militants and narrowly escaped a wave of suicide car bombers, the army said.

As troops pursued an offensive praised by the United States, a burst of shootings in the port city of Karachi left dozens dead and added ethnic conflict to the Islamist violence gnawing at the nuclear-armed country's stability.

President Asif Ali Zardari urged ordinary Pakistanis to support the operation in the Buner region so the Islamic nation would remain "a moderate, modern and democratic state."

But there was anger and skepticism among residents fleeing Buner yesterday.

"Both sides bring us trouble: The Taliban is shelling, the army is shelling," said farmer Taj Mohammed, 43, driving a pickup carrying more than a dozen relatives. "Why are they putting our women and children in danger? We want peace, whether it comes through the government or the Taliban."

Security forces backed by artillery and warplanes began pushing into Buner, a district 60 miles from the capital, Islamabad, on Tuesday after Taliban militants from neighboring Swat Valley infiltrated the area under cover of a peace pact.

Yesterday, troops ousted militants from the Ambela Pass leading over the mountains into Buner and were inching toward the north, said Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, an army spokesman.

Soldiers fired at four suspected suicide bombers who drove toward them near the pass, Abbas said. Two vehicles exploded while the other two drove away.

Troops also destroyed four militant vehicles in Dir, a district to the west, Abbas said. In all, at least 14 militants were killed and one soldier was wounded in the previous 24 hours, he said.

Abbas also said militants, who have kidnapped dozens of lightly armed police and paramilitary troops, burned a police station and sealed off the town of Sultanwas.

"The people of Sultanwas are in great distress," Abbas said at a news conference. "Nobody is being allowed to move out of Sultanwas."

He also said militants killed a police officer and threw his body into a river in Swat, but said the peace deal centered on the valley was "intact."

A spokesman for the Taliban in Swat insisted they were sticking to the peace process. The militants in Buner were all local Taliban, Muslim Khan said.

A marked economic slowdown meanwhile has heightened ethnic tensions.

Competition for jobs and political power is sharpest in Karachi, a teeming southern city with a history of ethnic violence where shooting broke out late Wednesday.

Much of the tension has been between ethnic Pashtuns, who dominate the violence-plagued northwest, and Urdu-speaking Mohajirs descended from Muslim migrants from India.