Militants Clash with Pak Forces amid Floods

Utilizing the flooding chaos militants in Pakistan clashed with police overnight, authorities said on Wednesday, as international donations for the millions of victims picked pace three weeks after the deluge began, say reports.

Senior meteorologist Arif Mahmood said floodwaters won’t fully recede until the end of the month, and existing river torrents were still head to cities such as Hyderabad and Sukkur in the south. But said there were no heavy rains forecast for the week.

The floods have already submerged thousands of villages, killed around 1,500 people and affected 20 million others, authorities say.

The floods first hit the restive northwest, destroying infrastructure, and then the bloated rivers gushed toward the south and the east, displacing millions of others.
A fifth of Pakistani territory is believed to be affected by the flood fury.

A group of militants first killed two members of an anti-Taliban force in the Adezai area of Peshawar while they were on their way to a mosque late on Tuesday, Liaqat Ali Khan, Peshawar police chief, was reported as saying.

Hours later, dozens of militants from the Khyber tribal region, which lies along the Afghan border, attacked police posts in Peshawar’s Sarband area. The exchange of fire lasted for about an hour before the militants retreated to Khyber, Khan said.

Several militants were killed, but there were no police casualties, said reports in the international media.