Sufi Muhammad's eldest son killed in Swat shelling

Bear in mind that the Pakistan Army is not trained for counter-insurgency - it is trained and drilled to fight conventional war. In conventional war you don't send in the tanks and infantry into a zone until you have prepared the area with artillery bombardment to disrupt any enemy who may be present.

The Taliban have a presence in Maidan so the area would have been bombarded before sending in soldiers.