60 militants killed in Pakistan: Army

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MINGORA, (Pakistan): (Agencies): Pakistani troops killed up to 60 Islamist militants during fierce fighting in the Swat valley in the country's northwest, the army said on Monday, while the insurgents called a truce to recover their dead and wounded.
Troops firing artillery and backed by helicopter gunships on Sunday battled militants led by a pro-Taliban cleric seeking to impose strict Islamic code in the scenic valley close to Pakistan's lawless tribal belt bordering Afghanistan. We heard big bangs the whole night. We don't know how many people were killed," a terrified resident of Charbagh, 3 mileswest of the valley's main town of Mingora, told Reuters
Army spokesman Major-General Waheed Arshad said that, based on reports by police and the paramilitary Frontier Corps, up to 60 militants had been killed.
He had no reports of casualties among security forces, although residents saw at least nine dead paramilitaries.
The eruption of violence in Swat comes as the Supreme Court is hearing challenges to the re-election earlier this month of U.S. ally President Pervez Musharraf.
It follows a suicide attack on former prime minister Benazir Bhutto that killed 139 people in the southern city of Karachi when she returned from self-imposed exile on October 18.
Islamist militants seeking to destabilize nuclear-armed Pakistan regard Musharraf and Bhutto as lackeys of the West.
There is speculation the pair, who have vowed to fight militancy and extremism, could share power after national elections due by January, although Bhutto is bitterly opposed to conservatives in the ruling Pakistan Muslim League.
Militant activity has surged in Swat since pro-Taliban cleric Maulana Fazlullah launched an illegal FM radio station and urged a jihad, or Muslim holy war.
Fazlullah, known as "Mullah Radio," is de facto head of a pro-Taliban group, Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) or Movement for the Implementation of ohammad's Sharia Law.