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PESHAWAR, Pakistan : Pakistan said Saturday troops were closing in on a key Taliban-held town in the northwest as they pursued their anti-militant offensive, which the UN said displaced nearly a million people.
Hundreds of thousands of desperate civilians have streamed down from the mountains of the Swat valley and two neighbouring districts since late April seeking safety with relatives or in government-run camps in an escalating humanitarian crisis.
"By Friday evening, 987,140 people were registered as displaced since May 2," UN refugee agency spokeswoman Ariane Rummery told AFP.
"There may be thousands more, who fled Swat but have not been registered as yet" at camps set up in North West Frontier Province (NWFP), Rummery said.
Exhausted and living under canvas in camps that offer little protection from the searing heat of the Pakistani plains, far from the cool mountain air to which they are accustomed, the displaced lashed out at the army offensive.
"The government should give us peace. We have no need for tents, for food or for money," said Hayat Ullah, a grandfather who came with his wife, daughters and children from Mingora.
"We didn't come here because of the Taliban, we came here after the shelling and bombardment of the government," he said in the government-run camp Jalala in Mardan district where children queued for tea and ice for their parents.
In Peshawar, the capital of NWFP where thousands of people displaced by the conflict have sought refuge, a car bomb ripped through a packed street killing 11 people, including women and children, on Saturday, officials said.
The military says up to 15,000 troops were taking on about 4,000 well-armed fighters in Swat, where Islamabad has ordered a battle to "eliminate" Islamist militants, branded by Washington the greatest terror threat to the West.
The militants' advance to within 100 kilometres (60 miles) of Pakistan's capital raised concern in the United States, which has put Pakistan at the centre of its efforts to contain a Taliban-led insurgency in neighbouring Afghanistan.
According to combined death tolls released by the military, more than 980 militants and 45 soldiers have been killed in the three-pronged onslaught launched in Lower Dir on April 26, Buner on April 28 and Swat last week.
Medical officials, journalists and aid workers, who have been largely unable to access the combat zone, have not been able to confirm those figures. Those fleeing the violence have spoken of civilian dead and wounded.
The military said troops were approaching Mingora, capital of Swat, to intercept militants trying to flee what residents believe is an imminent military offensive to re-take control of the city held by Islamist fighters.
"Security forces are getting closer to Mingora city to isolate and block the movement of fleeing terrorists," spokesman Major General Athar Abbas told a news conference updating reporters on the 21-day offensive in the northwest.
He said an "important terrorist commander" -- Mukhar, alias Rashid Lala, was killed in Mingora, another killed and a third arrested.
The government on Saturday relaxed a curfew for eight hours in Mingora to allow civilians to flee, raising expectations of a military rush towards the town -- control of which would be vital to win back the mountainous district.
Firebrand commander Maulana Fazlullah has led thousands of supporters in a brutal nearly two year insurgency to enforce an uncompromising version of Islamic law in Swat, once frequented by Westerners for its scenic peaks.
Airborne troops were flown into his alleged stronghold of Peochar on Tuesday to open up a new front, but Abbas admitted Saturday that while his name was "on the hit list" his whereabouts were still unknown.
The military released video footage allegedly showing militant hideouts and ammunition dumps destroyed by security forces during raids in Swat.
There are concerns that the army campaign -- including artillery bombardment, attacks by helicopter gunships and commandos dropped behind Taliban lines -- will grow more and more unpopular among Pakistan civilians.
Elsewhere in northwest Pakistan, a suspected US missile strike in the semi-autonomous tribal region of North Waziristan near the Afghan border killed 10 militants, two of them described foreigners.
- AFP /ls
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