A small jirga of tribal elders is negotiating a ceasefire with government officials in North Waziristan after fierce clashes between security forces and militants in which 250 people have been killed. NWFP Governor Ali Jan Orakzai told reporters in Peshawar that a jirga was negotiating a ceasefire. | “Once the ceasefire is agreed upon then a larger jirga will discuss permanent peace,” he said. |
Tribal sources in Miranshah said that MNA Maulana Nek Zaman, Maulana Deen Dar and Maulana Muhammad Alam were holding meetings with the military authorities and the militants to reach a ceasefire. The jirga is also trying to negotiate the opening of the Miranshah-Bannu highway for public traffic.
However, the army reserved the right to retaliate if military installations were attacked. “We will retaliate if we come under fire,” Maj-Gen. Waheed Arshad told Daily Times by phone from Rawalpindi. An informal ceasefire began on Wednesday to allow tribesmen to bury some 50 people who were killed in an airstrike the previous day that hit the main market in the village of Ippi. The army said the victims of the bombing were pro-Taliban militants, but residents said the dead were civilians including women and children.
55 civilians killed: “We know that the army killed 55 innocent people, and they included women and children,” Zaman told AP. “We know it because we buried them.”
Gen Arshad said he did not know how many civilians had died, but blamed militants for opening fire on security forces from villagers’ dwellings, making them legitimate targets. A military statement said elders from two villages near Mir Ali had sought army protection “because militants use their compounds, which are ultimately targeted by retaliating security forces drawing in and inflicting collateral damage on civilians”.
Many civilians have fled Mir Ali and nearby villages because of the fighting and a shortage of supplies. “Residents are still leaving for safer places despite the lull in fighting but the last two days have been far better,” Salam Dawar, a resident of Harmuz village, told Daily Times by phone.
50 foreign militants killed: Gen Arshad said the jirga which met military authorities told them that the 200 militants killed in ‘Operation al-Mizan’ included 50 foreigners, 25 of them Uzbeks and the rest from Tajikistan, Afghanistan and of Arab descent.Two soldiers were injured when an improvised explosive device struck a military convoy coming from North Waziristan near Bannu airport on Thursday. Another IED was detected and safely exploded on the Miranshah-Bannu road at Pattasi Adda near Mir Ali, the military said. Late in the evening, militants fired rockets at the army’s Amin picket No 1 in Miranshah, prompting return fire from the security forces. There were no reports of casualties.
| Yeah, sure. What's a few rockets fired off in the course of a ceasefire? |