 |
| |
WEEKLY
SECTIONS |
 |
 |
 |
|
| Air strikes kill 22 in Bajaur Agency |
|
|
|
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
By Mushtaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR: Around 22 people, including 14 suspected militants and eight civilians, were killed and several others injured seriously in latest air strikes by the PAF jet fighters and military gunship helicopters on suspected locations of the Taliban in the Bajaur Agency on Tuesday.
Also, militants handed over the bodies of five soldiers to a tribal Jirga who were killed in a Taliban’s ambush on August 6 in Loisam area. The PAF jet fighters flew after almost four days of pause in bombing and blitzed heavily militants suspected hideouts in Charmang, Mamond and Nawagai subdivisions of the militancy-stricken tribal region.
Military authorities said 14 militants were killed and several others injured in the fighting after a large number of Taliban fighters attacked the paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC) personnel and political administration officials at the Nawagai Civil Colony on Monday night.
Armed with sophisticated weapons, the militants reportedly opened fire on the law-enforcers, who had taken positions in their sandbag bunkers on rooftops. The officials said the FC men returned fire and forced the militants to retreat.
Later, the security forces fired artillery and mortar shells from paramilitary Bajaur Scouts’ headquarters in Khar on militant positions in Nawagai and killed 14 of them. Similarly, the officials said several other militants suffered injuries in artillery and mortar shelling and their hideouts were destroyed.
On the other hand, a Taliban commander, who introduced himself as Qari Ziaur Rahman, called The News from the Bajaur Agency and claimed responsibility for the attack on paramilitary forces in Nawagai.
He said only one of their fighters died and another sustained injuries in the artillery and mortar shelling on their positions in Nawagai. Also, he claimed, his fighters took seven FC men as hostage, destroyed all bunkers of the troops built on rooftops and snatched 20 G-III, four AK-47 assault rifles and three light machine-guns (LMG) from the soldiers during fighting.
Qari Ziaur Rahman, who is reportedly an Afghan Taliban commander operating in Afghanistan’s Kunar and Nuristan provinces, was captured in Peshawar by the law-enforcers and he was among several other Taliban fighters released in return for Pakistan’s ambassador to Afghanistan Tariq Azizuddin.
Qari said he and his tribal fighters were ready to stop fighting against Pakistani security forces if the military operation and aerial bombing in the Bajaur Agency was stopped. “Our mission is to wage Jihad against US-led forces in Afghanistan but Pakistan forced us to fight against its own security forces by creating hurdles for us to cross the border and destroy positions of our fellow tribal Mujahideen in Bajaur,” explained the Taliban commander.
Similarly, seven people, including women and children were killed when four jet fighters and gunship helicopters blitzed militants’ alleged hideouts in Nawagai. Tribal sources said the warplanes and military choppers continued bombing on several villages, including Chinar Charmang, Asghar Charmang and Kotkai Charmang in the restive Nawagai subdivision.
Military authorities said militants had occupied houses of local tribesmen, which the war-frightened tribesmen had vacated due to military operation. Tribal sources said a woman died and her two children suffered injuries when a mortar shell hit her house at Shah Khani village of the Mamond tehsil.
Tribespeople also reported that nine people, including three women and six children were killed in the aerial strikes by the jetfighters on Kamangara village near Sharif Khana in Mamond.
Military officials closely monitoring the ongoing operation, however, denied reports of the killing of innocent people. Military sources said that four warplanes and gunship helicopters targeted militants’ suspected locations throughout the day and inflicted heavy losses on the tribal militants.
They, however, didn’t provide any details about the losses suffered by the Taliban fighters in the daylong bombing. Meanwhile, Taliban fighters finally agreed to hand over bodies of five slain security personnel to a jirga of tribal elders and shopkeepers.
A former agency councillor, Haji Rahat Yousaf, led the jirga, comprising Syed Rahim, chairman, Anjuman-e-Tajiran Bajaur Agency, Abdur Rahim, president shopkeepers of Inayat Kalley bazaar, etc and held talks with militant commanders at Omari village.
The Jirga was later given permission by the Taliban to go to Loisam and retrieve the bodies of the five slain soldiers. According to jirga members, they were given several coffins by the military officials in Khar to wrap up bodies of the slain soldiers but they recovered only five corpses.
These bodies, they said, were lying in the maize fields and had been decomposed.The Jirga members later took the bodies to Khar and handed them over to the military authorities.
Sources also said that military authorities had started transporting Pakistan army soldiers to Nawagai for securing the strategically important area to counter militants’ growing influence and disrupt their supply line via Mohmand Agency and stop reinforcement of militants from Mohmand and other tribal regions.
|
|
|
| Back
| Send
this story to Friend | Print
Version |
|
|
Three killed as Sh Rashid escapes attempt on life
By Shakeel Anjum
RAWALPINDI: Awami Muslim League (AML) Chief and a candidate for NA-55 (Rawalpindi) by-election Sheikh Rashid Ahmad was wounded, while three people — a guard and two party workers — were killed when four gunmen more |
|
|
12 soldiers killed in South Waziristan
ISLAMABAD: Twelve soldiers embraced martyrdom while two others were injured in a clash with militants during the ongoing operation Rah-e-Nijat in South Waziristan Agency (SWA), the ISPR said on Monday.
S more |
|
|
Plan to attack five-star hotel foiled
By our correspondent
LAHORE: The CIA police here on Monday claimed to have foiled an attack on Americans staying at a five-star hotel and arrested six terrorists, including a suicide bomber.
Addressing a press conference, SS more |
|
|
Govt taking court for a ride
By Ansar Abbasi
ISLAMABAD: She fought her case in the media. She won her battle in the judicial forum too. But still the government is bent on making an example out of her for refusing to follow the illegal dictates of her min more |
|
|
Pakistan against arms race: Gilani
By Azeem Samar
KARACHI: Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani on Monday said Pakistan does not want to be engaged in an arms race with any country.
Speaking as chief guest at the induction ceremony of second Chinese-m more |
|
|
|
Punjab-Sindh water row Centre’s intervention sought
By our correspondent
ISLAMABAD: Tension between Punjab and Sindh over opening of the Chashma-Jhelum and Taunsa-Punjnad link canals has touched a new high as the former has sought the Centre’s intervention.
The Punjab has sai more |
|
|
|
French, Dutch fight over giving LNG to Pakistan
By Khalid Mustafa
ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin and his team is all set to thwart the attempt of an unscrupulous combine of oil industry heavyweights and some functionaries of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Re more |
|
|
|
Nine killed as no let-up in rains
By Nisar Mahmood
PESHAWAR: Nine people were killed and scores of others injured as heavy rains and snowfall lashed various parts of the country for the fourth consecutive day on Monday.
Reports from the Shangla district more |
|
|
|
Malik orders NUML closure as protest enters 5ht day
ISLAMABAD: The protest of the students of the National University of Modern Languages (NUML) against thrashing of Professor Malik Tahir by Registrar Brigadier (R) Obaidullah Ranjha entered its fifth consecutive more |
|
|
|
Malik insists no Blackwater in Pakistan
By Muhammad Anis
ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Rehman Malik while responding to an accusation from a PML-N parliamentarian told the National Assembly that Blackwater was not providing security to the president and the prime mini more |
|
|
|
FBR gets list of properties rented out to foreigners
By Hanif Khalid
ISLAMABAD: Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has received list of properties from Foreign Office, which were in use of foreigners in Islamabad, Karachi, Peshawar and Lahore, but these were not shown in annual tax more |
|
|
|
Repealing of 17th Amendment
By our correspondent
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani has begun efforts to create consensus on repealing the 17th Amendment before presidential address to the joint sitting of the parliament.
The prime minis more |
|
|
|
Three suspects held in Mohmand
By our correspondent
GHALLANAI: The security forces arrested three suspected persons during search operation in Safi subdivision of Mohmand Agency, official sources said Monday. The sources said the security forces carried out sear more |
|
|
|
No presence of Blackwater, DynCorp in Pakistan, NA body told
ISLAMABAD: Secretary Interior Qamar Zaman again negated on Monday the presence of Blackwater, DynCorp or any other foreign security agency in the country. “Neither the Blackwater and the DynCorp nor any other s more |
|
|
|
Govt urged to take up water issue with India
By Asim Yasin
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Muslim League-Q, Parliamentary leader in the National Assembly, Makhdoom Faisal Saleh Hayat while urging the government to take up the issue of ‘water terrorism’ with New Delhi, has question more |
|
|
|
Avalanche kills 17 Indian soldiers in held Kashmir
HELD SRINAGAR: Seventeen Indian soldiers were killed on Monday in an avalanche that slammed into a group of 70 combat troops at a high-altitude warfare training camp in Kashmir, the army said on Monday.
more |
|
|
|
Taliban defiant as Afghans flee ahead of assault
KANDAHAR: The Nato commanders urged the Taliban to surrender as troops dug in on Monday for a major assault on their key stronghold in southern Afghanistan, sending thousands of residents fleeing.
The Ta more |
|
|
|
Plea to freeze foreign accounts
By our correspondent
LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Monday ordered the federal government to submit a reply within four weeks on a petition seeking freezing of accounts in foreign banks and recovery of illegal assets accumu more |
|
|
|
Attack on Sh Rashid
RAWALPINDI: The PML-N candidate for by-polls from NA-55, Malik Shakil Awan, has announced suspension of electioneering for a day to mourn the death of those killed in the attack on the office of his rival, Shei more |
|
|
|
Indian forces to halt Kashmir rally outside UN office
HELD SRINAGAR: The held Kashmir authorities deployed thousands of police and troops on Monday to prevent a protest outside the UN office here over the recent killing of two teenage boys by Indian security force more |
|
|
|
briefs...
20 die in Afghan floods, avalanches
KANDAHAR: Twenty people have died in floods and avalanches triggered by some of the heaviest rain and snow in Afghanistan for 50 years, an official said on Monday. At more |
|
|
|
ISSN 1563-9479 
