MarketNeutral
11th April 2010, 07:49 PM
Seventy civilians were reportedly among 136 people killed in airstrikes over the weekend in Pakistan's tribal region near Afghan border, officials and locals said on Sunday.
The strikes were carried out in the Orakzai district, where government forces are conducting an offensive to eliminate al-Qaeda and Taliban hideouts, and in the neighbouring district of Khyber.
A spokesman of the paramilitary Frontier Corps force, Major Fazalur Rehman said 12 militants died and six were injured Sunday in a clash with troops in the Orakzai villages of Kangra and Saam.
'Following the fighting, army helicopters targeted the terrorists' three hideouts. Casualties are not known,' Rehman added.
The fighting came a day after intense clashes in the Baizot area of Orakzai that left 54 militants dead.
'Around 100 terrorists who had come from the nearby district of Khyber tried to capture an important checkpoint but our troops repulsed the raid,' said a local official, Riaz Masood.
Hundreds of Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters have fled to the neighbouring Khyber district following the offensive in Orakzai that started in late March and has killed more than 350 rebels, according to official data.
Most of the retreating militants are taking shelter in Khyber district's remote Tirah valley where jet planes pounded a residential area on Saturday afternoon when a meeting of the tribal elders from the Koki Khel tribe was taking place.
The Koki Khel tribe is believed to have allied itself with pro- Taliban cleric Mangal Bagh, whose men have carried out suicide bombings and raids on security forces over the last two years.
Intelligence agents and officials of the local civilian government said that more than 70 people died and around 50 were injured in the air strike in Sra Vila village in Tira valley. Most were civilians.
'The jet fighters first bombarded a cluster of six houses and when the people gathered to pull the dead and injured from the rubble the plans targeted the place once more,' said a local government official, who asked not to be named.
'It must have been a bad intelligence and the security forces must have thought that the militants were holding a meeting, which was not the case,' said the official.
Pakistan's English-language Dawn newspaper quoted health officials as saying that women and children were among the injured taken to hospitals in Peshawar, the capital of North-West Frontier Province.
The newspaper also cited tribal elders from Koki Khel as condemning the bombing. They claimed most of the dead were non- combatant tribesmen.
The operations have put Taliban an al-Qaeda militants under pressure and reduced the number of their bases from where they once freely carried out cross-border-raids on international forces in Afghanistan.
www.monstersandcritics.com/news/southasia/news/article_1547261.php/Seventy-civil
ians-among-136-killed-in-Pakistan-clashes
The strikes were carried out in the Orakzai district, where government forces are conducting an offensive to eliminate al-Qaeda and Taliban hideouts, and in the neighbouring district of Khyber.
A spokesman of the paramilitary Frontier Corps force, Major Fazalur Rehman said 12 militants died and six were injured Sunday in a clash with troops in the Orakzai villages of Kangra and Saam.
'Following the fighting, army helicopters targeted the terrorists' three hideouts. Casualties are not known,' Rehman added.
The fighting came a day after intense clashes in the Baizot area of Orakzai that left 54 militants dead.
'Around 100 terrorists who had come from the nearby district of Khyber tried to capture an important checkpoint but our troops repulsed the raid,' said a local official, Riaz Masood.
Hundreds of Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters have fled to the neighbouring Khyber district following the offensive in Orakzai that started in late March and has killed more than 350 rebels, according to official data.
Most of the retreating militants are taking shelter in Khyber district's remote Tirah valley where jet planes pounded a residential area on Saturday afternoon when a meeting of the tribal elders from the Koki Khel tribe was taking place.
The Koki Khel tribe is believed to have allied itself with pro- Taliban cleric Mangal Bagh, whose men have carried out suicide bombings and raids on security forces over the last two years.
Intelligence agents and officials of the local civilian government said that more than 70 people died and around 50 were injured in the air strike in Sra Vila village in Tira valley. Most were civilians.
'The jet fighters first bombarded a cluster of six houses and when the people gathered to pull the dead and injured from the rubble the plans targeted the place once more,' said a local government official, who asked not to be named.
'It must have been a bad intelligence and the security forces must have thought that the militants were holding a meeting, which was not the case,' said the official.
Pakistan's English-language Dawn newspaper quoted health officials as saying that women and children were among the injured taken to hospitals in Peshawar, the capital of North-West Frontier Province.
The newspaper also cited tribal elders from Koki Khel as condemning the bombing. They claimed most of the dead were non- combatant tribesmen.
The operations have put Taliban an al-Qaeda militants under pressure and reduced the number of their bases from where they once freely carried out cross-border-raids on international forces in Afghanistan.
www.monstersandcritics.com/news/southasia/news/article_1547261.php/Seventy-civil
ians-among-136-killed-in-Pakistan-clashes