| Submit your comments on this article |
| India-Pakistan |
| Pakistan detains 40 tribesmen after convoy attack |
| 2006-04-21 |
| MIRANSHAH, Pakistan - Pakistani authorities said on Friday they had arrested 40 people, including some tribal elders, a day after militants launched a deadly ambush on a military convoy near the Afghan border. The administration in the restive North Waziristan tribal region detained them to “force local tribesmen to hand over” the insurgents involved in Thursday’s attack, a local official told AFP, requesting anonymity. Seven soldiers died and 22 were wounded in the ambush on a paramilitary convoy in Sarobi village, located 17 kilometres (10 miles) north of the tribal region’s main town Miranshah. Residents said the authorities rounded up the people from Sarobi and the adjoining town of Spelga. They also sealed their shops in Miranshah and in the bazaar of nearby Mir Ali town, they said. Security officials said six militants were believed to have been killed by Pakistani troops and helicopter gunships on Thursday after the attacks, although the bodies were removed by their comrades. The ambush came amid intensified efforts by Pakistan, a key US ally in the “war on terror”, to flush out Al-Qaeda and Taleban insurgents and their supporters and restore control in the lawless region. Pakistan has deployed 80,000 troops in the bordering areas to hunt militants who sneaked across the frontier after Afghanistan’s hardline Taleban regime was toppled by US-led forces in late 2001. Clashes in the twin regions of North and South Waziristan last month left around 250 insurgents and five soldiers dead, the military said. |
| Posted by:Steve |