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| India-Pakistan |
| Blast kills govt official, family in Kurram agency |
| 2009-12-28 |
| [Dawn] A bomb ripped through a government official's house in Kurram agency on Sunday, killing him and his five family members in an attack that police said was in retaliation for military operations targeting Taliban in the area. The military has stepped up airstrikes in Kurram since many militants fled there following a major ground offensive launched in nearby South Waziristan in mid-October. Both areas are in Pakistan's lawless tribal region near the Afghan border. Sunday's attack targeted the house of Sarfaraz Siddiqi, a government official in Kurram, said police officer Naeemullah Khan. The dead included Siddiqi, his wife and four children, he said. "Explosives were planted near the boundary wall of the house and went off early in the morning," local government official Khalid Mumtaz Kundi informed. Police are investigating how the bomb was planted in Siddiqi's house and whether it was detonated by timer or remote control, added Khan. The attack appeared to be in retaliation for the military's stepped-up effort to target Taliban militants in the area who have fled from South Waziristan, said Khan. Government officials have also been kidnapped in Kurram, he said. Many Taliban militants are also believed to have fled to North Waziristan, an area in Pakistan's tribal region dominated by jihadi groups launching cross-border attacks against coalition forces in Afghanistan. Washington has pressed Pakistan to target such groups but has received a reluctant response, as Islamabad has continued to concentrate on militants that pose a domestic threat. The US has responded by relying more heavily on drone missile strikes in Pakistan's tribal areas, including one on Saturday in the Babar Raghzai area of North Waziristan. Pakistani intelligence officials on Sunday raised the death toll from the strike to 13 after eight more bodies were pulled from the rubble and two wounded died in the hospital. The US rarely discusses the covert program but has in the past said it has taken out several top al-Qaeda operatives. At least one local militant commander was killed in Saturday's strike. But authorities were still trying to determine how many of the others were militants or civilians, said the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. Pakistan publicly opposes the strikes but is believed to secretly aid them. |
| Posted by:Fred |