Fifty troops and 130 pro-Taliban and Al Qaeda militants have been killed in fierce fighting in North Waziristan since Saturday, officials and local residents said. Twenty soldiers and 65 militants were reported killed in clashes on Sunday, after militants attacked two military convoys near Mir Ali. Security sources told Daily Times that the bodies of 31 soldiers had been airlifted from Mir Ali to Bannu, and 19 more bodies were awaiting removal from the military camp in Mir Ali. They said 50 wounded soldiers had also been airlifted to the Bannu Combined Military Hospital. However, military spokesman Maj General Waheed Arshad said that 45 soldiers had been killed in clashes since Saturday.
Pro-Taliban cleric Maulvi Deen Dar arranged the transfer of the soldiersÂ’ bodies through a local jirga after the militants agreed to allow local residents to hand them over to military authorities in Mir Ali. Earlier, Gen Arshad said around 50 soldiers had gone missing in the Mir Ali area and they were feared kidnapped or killed. He later told AFP that contact had been established with most of the soldiers and only 10 or 12 had not been accounted for, but it was not clear if any of those had been killed.
Air strikes: He said more air strikes were carried out on Monday against targets around Mir Ali town, east of Miranshah. “We used the air force in areas where ground troops cannot be used,” he said.
This was the first time the military used jet fighters in the area since 2004. Local residents saw two bombers fly over Mir Ali at around 1:00pm on Monday. They reappeared soon after sunset and dropped bombs.
| “Many of them are getting money and weapons from across the border,” he told AFP, adding that the militants were “in contact with members of a hostile country in Afghanistan,” an apparent reference to India. |
According to residents of villages around Mir Ali, some 54 people, including civilians and militants, were killed in clashes on Monday. Eighteen dead were reported from Khasookhel village, 12 from Mir Ali village, 15 from Khadi village, four from Harmuz village, three from Khedherkhel village and two from Mir Ali bazaar. “All 15 killed in Khadi village were militants, among them four foreigners,” a resident of Mir Ali told Daily Times. He said many civilians were also killed. “They were caught in the cross-fire.”
| A security official in Miranshah told AP that two Arabs who were low-ranking Al Qaeda men and an Uzbek died in a battle in an area called Malagam. About a dozen civilians, including women and children, died when a stray mortar struck their home in Mir Ali. |
Gen Arshad said the security forces targeted homes from where militant fire was coming. “Our policy is to pick a target from where fire is coming against the security forces and if the militants are using the local population as shelter and using their houses against the security forces, we cannot be blamed for collateral damage,” he said. Eyewitnesses said Mir Ali bazaar was “completely sealed off and it looks like a curfew as security forces are patrolling empty streets “.