 Seven people were killed in a gunfight in North Waziristan Agency, as seminary students, calling themselves the Taliban, raided homes searching for rivals, residents and a representative of the students said on Thursday.
| Isn't this like the movie where the scientists invent the deadly virus and then it turns on them and kills them all, except for the young scientist and the blonde? Sure hope they have a young scientist and a blonde someplace in North Waziristan. |
More than 30 people have died in December alone in clashes between the students and rivals they have branded bandits in the agency. A representative of the students said five bandits and two students were killed in the remote Shawal area after the raids on several fortress-like homes on Wednesday. Government officials declined to comment, but travellers from the area, to the west of Miranshah, confirmed the latest fighting. Two bullet-riddled bodies were found in a stream on the outskirts of Miranshah on Thursday. One of the men was a retired junior officer of the paramilitary Frontier Corps, the other was a friend, a local official said. The two were probably killed on Wednesday night, but it was not known by whom, the official said.
| Did the retired junior officer of the FC moonlight as a bandido, or were the Talibs just throwing their weight around? |
Violence erupted in early December between the well-armed students and members of a gang that had been extorting money from travellers. Since then, the students have been searching out their rivals and the mutilated bodies of several gang members have been strung up in public. Some have been beheaded. Government officials have played down the violence as a tribal feud that security forces are reluctant to get involved in, hoping the dispute can be resolved by tribal councils that have traditionally ruled the area. |