| Submit your comments on this article |
| India-Pakistan |
| 24 dead in Waziristan violence |
| 2006-01-08 |
| Twenty-four people were killed in a day of violence in North and South Waziristan on Saturday, as local Taliban attacked a paramilitary checkpoint and helicopter gunships bombed a pro-Taliban clericâs house. Militants armed with heavy weapons attacked a new Frontier Corps checkpoint on Khasokhel bridge near Mir Ali, the main town in North Waziristan - and near where top Al Qaeda commander Hamza Rabia was reportedly killed in December â at around 2:00am on Saturday morning and the fighting continued for some three hours, local resident Afghanullah Dawar told Daily Times. He said the Taliban had warned the government not to set up the post because it would âhamper their movementâ. Eight FC soldiers were killed in the attack and nine went missing, though three were later found, military spokesman Maj Gen Shaukat Sultan told Daily Times. Security forces later launched a search operation to find the six missing soldiers, hundreds of troops surrounding Khasokhel village and bridge. âThe village is completely surrounded and its inhabitants (believed to be around 10,000) have been told to leave,â witnesses said. Gen Sultan confirmed a search operation had been launched but gave no details of arrests. âThese are serious things and we are taking serious notice,â he said. Maj Gen Muhammad Akram Sahi, operations commander in North Waziristan, gave a jirga of tribal elders in Miranshah a 24-hour ultimatum to hand over the suspected Taliban who attacked the checkpoint. Hours after the attack, aircraft attacked pro-Taliban cleric Maulana Noor Muhammadâs house in Saidgai village, three kilometres from the Afghan border, killing eight tribesmen and wounding 19 others. Local residents suspected the involvement of the US military. âThey (Americans) took away two tribesmen and before going back they fired two rockets from their helicopters,â said a wounded tribesman in a Miranshah hospital. Four women and four children were among the wounded, he added. All those killed in the attack were members of Mohammadâs family, Reuters reported. The scholar was not among the dead, said the wounded man, who declined to be identified. Gen Sultan said there had been reports of firing in Saidgai village and âsome casualtiesâ, and added that the authorities were investigating the incident. In Ladah sub-division of South Waziristan, unidentified gunmen shot dead pro-government tribal elder Malik Essa Khan, his brother, cousin, a young child and another occupant of the vehicle they were travelling in from Tank to Kotkai. Four died on the spot while the fifth died of his wounds in a Tank hospital, local sources said. In Wana, a six-year-old Afghan refugee died in bomb explosion in which another eight-year-old child was wounded, a security official said. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |