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Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Ceasefire collapses as artillery shells rain near Khar; 10 killed
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Army claimed on Monday to have routed Taliban militants in a stronghold near the Afghan border but found no sign of Osama bin Laden or al-Qaeda No 2 Ayman al-Zawahri.
Officials said that the forces had killed some 560 Pakistani and foreign fighters and thwarted a push to make Bajaur into a militant fortress. Army spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas said about 20 members of the security forces died and 30 were missing.
“In our view, their back has been broken,” army spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas told The Associated Press. “Main leaders are on the run and the people of the area are now openly defying whatever the militants had achieved there.”
Officials including former President Pervez Musharraf have mentioned Bajaur as a possible hiding place for bin Laden or al-Zawahri. Abbas said many foreigners were reportedly in Bajaur before the operation, but that many had probably fled to Afghanistan or other parts of Pakistan’s northwest and that the operation had found no trace of the al-Qaeda chiefs. - AP
Mushtaq Yusufzai adds from Peshawar: After a few days of tense calm in the militancy-hit Bajaur Agency that encouraged hundreds of displaced families to return to their homes, 10 people, most of them children, were killed and eight others injured when mortar and artillery shells fell on Inayat Kalley near Khar on Monday evening.
On the other hand, a tribal Lashkar of Salarzai tehsil continued burning houses of militants and their supporters and set on fire 11 more houses of the militants and their collaborators in Salarzai and Khar subdivisions.
Tribal sources told The News from Inayat Kalley near agency headquarters Khar that eight villagers died and a number of others sustained injuries when several mortar and artillery shells fell on residential areas.
They said almost all the displaced families had returned to their homes from makeshift relief camps in the distant settled areas so that they could spend the holy month of Ramazan in their hometowns. But all of a sudden, the residents complained about artillery shelling from an undisclosed location on residential areas. They said several artillery shells fell in the densely populated Inayat Kalley, razing two houses and causing damage to several others.
The villagers retrieved 10 bodies from rubble of the houses and most were said to be children. Nine of the victims were identified as Fatima, Assadullah, Zakirullah, Abdullah, Habibullah, Hifsa Bibi, Masa Bibi, Irfanullah and wife of Habibullah.
The injured were shifted to the Agency Headquarters Hospital in Khar, where the doctors reported some of them to be in critical condition. Later, the angry residents put bodies of some of the children on main Bajaur-Peshawar Road in front of the colony housing all government offices and their heads including the political agent.
The demonstrators blamed the security forces for indiscriminate shelling on residential areas close to Khar, instead of targeting militant positions in their strongholds including Mamond, Charmang and Nawagai tehsils.
They complained that on the one hand the government was appealing them to return to their homes as a ceasefire has been announced during the holy month of Ramazan, but now when they came back to their villages, the security forces started targeting their homes killing their children.
“The government must tell us where should we go. Why the security forces are not killing militants who are publicly travelling on roads and are visible everywhere,” complained the protesting tribesmen of Inayat Kalley.
The villagers ended their protest after Khar tehsil Assistant Political Agent Iqbal Khattak and Tehsildar Abdul Haseeb came out of the colony and expressed their regret over the killing of innocent children in artillery shelling.
Both the officials, apparently having no say in military matters, promised the protesting tribespeople of no more shelling on residential areas. Also, they assured them of full compensation by the government.
The protesting tribespeople later peacefully dispersed and took bodies of the slain children to the village for burial. The grief-stricken villagers feared that people could again leave their homes if indiscriminate shelling was not stopped by the security forces.
“Every heart is bleeding over the killing of innocent children,” remarked Sahibzada Bahauddin, a tribal journalist and resident of Inayat Kalley. He said people had just arrived to their homes after several weeks of ‘humiliation in so-called relief camps’ set up by the provincial government outside Bajaur when they would be again forced to leave their home and hearth in the face of renewed shelling.
Military officials said they targeted militants “who were cutting PTCL cables.” The tribesmen of Salarzai continued torching houses of militants and their supporters and burnt 11 houses of Taliban fighters and their collaborators.
The Lashkar, comprising hundreds of armed tribesmen, was formed to punish militants for their harsh policies that prompted the government to launch military operation in Bajaur, and burnt down nine houses of militants and their supporters in Salarzai.
The Lashkar later even reached Haji Lawang Kalley in Khar tehsil and set ablaze two houses owned by Nazeer and Gul Rahman, alleged supporters of local Taliban. The action by Lashkar helped Salarzai residents to clear their area of militants. The residents, who earlier fled their homes due to military operation, have returned now.
There were reports of people fleeing their houses in the troubled villages of Mamond and Charmang and taking shelter in Salarzai, as it was considered the safest town of the restive tribal region after the tribal Lashkar cleared it of militants.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
