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| US drone attack kills 10 militants |
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Friday, October 24, 2008
By Mushtaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR: Some 10 militants were killed and six others seriously injured in yet another pre-dawn missile attack by a US spy plane on a Madrassa and a house in Danday Darpakhel village near Miramshah in the North Waziristan Agency (NWA) on Thursday morning. The militants died in the attack belonged to Ahmadzai Wazir and Mehsud tribes of South Waziristan and Dawar tribe in North Waziristan.
The US aircraft fired four Hellfire missiles on Madrassa Sirajul Uloom and the adjoining house of former Afghan Taliban commander, Maulana Pir Muhammad, who is now part of pro-America Hamid Karzai-led government in Kabul.
Taliban sources told The News from Danday Darpakhel — a village about five kilometres west of Miramshah on Ghulam Khan Road — that nine people died on the spot and six others sustained serious injuries in the missile attack.
He said one injured of the air strike later succumbed to injuries while on his way to the nearby Agency Headquarters Hospital in Miramshah, raising the death toll to 10. Official and tribal sources said two US spy planes had been seen continuously flying over the border region since Wednesday evening, firing four Hellfire missiles in the wee hours of Thursday.
According to sources, militants affiliated with Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud, had captured the Madrassa, the mosque and the house of Maulana Pir Muhammad after he shifted to Kabul along with his family.
During the Taliban era, Pir Mohammad served as vice-chancellor of the Kabul University. He quit his long association with the Taliban after he was offered a key portfolio in Kabul. “The militants were using these buildings as safe houses and did not allow villagers to offer prayers in the mosque.
However, later some elders went to the Taliban commanders and persuaded them to quit control of the mosque and Madrassa so that children of the village could be imparted religious education there,” said Haji Syed Halim, a resident of Danday Darpakhel village.
Though the militants had opened the mosque and Madrassa for villagers, yet they did not quit the control of the house and used to stay there frequently.During the night, the militants were seen fleeing the building and sitting on an open ground in front of the Madrassa.
Some of them took shelter in a seasonal dry stream in the village when the drone was continuously flying over the Madrassa building at an extremely low altitude.“The plane fired four missiles, two of them targeted a portion of the Madrassa and the adjacent house while the remaining two hit the militants on the ground and dry stream,” explained sources among the militants.
Some of the militants killed in the missile strike were identified as Mirza Ali Khan, Eid Muhammad, from Wana in South Waziristan, Qadir Khan and Gul Wali Shah, residents of Azam Warsak, a town near Wana, and Salim Gul and Abdul Wali hailing from Dawar tribe in North Waziristan.
Tribal sources told The News from Wana, headquarters of militants-run South Waziristan, that nine bodies of the Ahmadzai Wazir militants were transported there on Thursday evening. Sources said only four of the militants could be recognised. The bodies of other militants could not be identified and were retrieved in sacks. A senior militant commander confirmed that the militants killed in the US attack belonged to the Baitullah Mehsud-led TTP, who always fought against the US-led foreign forces in Afghanistan.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
