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| India-Pakistan |
| Pakistan: Girls' school 'blown up in northwest' |
| 2008-10-19 |
| (AKI) - Suspected militants on Friday blew up a girls middle school in Mingora, in the volatile Swat valley in North West Frontier Province, Pakistan's Geo News reported. This would happen a lot less often if every time a girls' school went up a boys' school was sure to follow in a day or two. The bombing follows a rocket and suicide attack on Thursday against a police station in Mingora that killed at least four Pakistani security officials and wounded twenty-six. Meanwhile, a curfew imposed on the town of Tehsil Khwazakhela on Monday after deadly overnight clashes between Taliban fighters and Pakistani security forces has been relaxed from 8am to 5pm, Geo News said. Twenty-five militants and two soldiers were killed in the Tehsil Khwazakhela clashes, Pakistani daily Dawn reported. Geo News reported that American drones were on Friday continuing their flights over various areas of the Khyber Agency and North Waziristan tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, spreading panic among local villagers. Unnamed sources quoted by Geo News said six people were killed and five others injured Thursday in air strikes by US spy planes on the village of Sam, believed to Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud's base. It was the first airstrike by a US drone in territory controlled by Mehsud - Pakistan's most wanted militant. It may have been been targeting a group of Uzbek militants, reports said. There have been a series of US drone attacks inside Pakistani territory along the border with Afghanistan in recent weeks, which have angered the public and increased tension between the US and Pakistan. In other news, a grand jirga of tribal chieftains from Kurram Agency on the Afghan border on Thursday brokered a peace deal between warring sectarian groups in the region. The accord is expected to end the violence between Sunni Bangash and Shia Turi tribesmen that has plagued Kurram for 18 months and led to the deaths of hundreds of people. |
| Posted by:Fred |