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| Foreign militants among 20 killed in Bajaur drone attack |
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Sunday, October 25, 2009
By our correspondents
KHAR/PESHAWAR: Twenty people, most of them local and foreign militants, were killed and over a dozen sustained injuries in a US drone attack on an underground hideout of the militants in Damadola village of Bajaur tribal region on Saturday.
Taliban sources told The News by telephone that a meeting of senior Taliban commanders of Bajaur, Swat, Dir Upper and Dir Lower districts was convened at a cave-like bunker when they were struck by the drone.
A close relative of Taliban regional commander and deputy leader of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) Maulana Faqir Muhammad told The News that Faqir Muhammad was also there at the meeting, but claimed he had left before the attack.
He said besides local militants, some guests, a word usually used for foreign fighters in the tribal areas, were also killed in the drone attack.
The sources said Maulvi Faqir’s nephew, Zahid, and son-in-law, whose name could not be ascertained, were also killed in the strikes. The militant, who wished not to be named, said the drone fired three missiles on the safe hideout, which was close to the house of Maulana Faqir Muhammad in his village Choatra.
Taliban sources said Maulana Faqir Muhammad had convened a meeting of local and foreign militants to devise a strategy for sending fighters to South Waziristan to fight alongside their fellow Mehsud Taliban militants against the Pakistan Army.
They said some Arab commanders also attended the meeting and did not agree with Faqir Muhammad’s proposal to go to Waziristan at a time when they were engaged in, what they termed, a “crucial and decisive” battle against the US-led forces across the border in Kunar and Nuristan provinces of Afghanistan.
The government officials claimed that Swat Taliban chief Maulana Fazlullah and his key commanders were also hiding in Bajaur and that’s why they sent several Jirgas to Faqir Muhammad to expel them from the territory or face the consequences.
“He did not expel them and that’s why the operation was launched against Faqir Muhammad in his stronghold Mamond in Bajaur,” a government official based in Khar, the regional headquarters of Bajaur, said.
Pleading anonymity, he said it was not clear whether some senior Taliban commanders were among the victims. He said the area was out of the government control and it will take some time to get the exact figure of casualties and identity of the victims. The sources said bodies of most of the victims were disfigured and beyond recognition.
Taliban sources said it was only one of their dozens of safe hideouts they had established three years ago to evade losses in drone attacks and bombing by Pakistani fighter planes.
Militants said most of their fighters remain inside these underground safe hideouts during the night and when there is bombing by the Pakistani fighter planes and helicopter gunships in Bajaur’s Mamond subdivision.
“This is the reason we remained safe in the seven-month-long operation last year. We could see from our bunkers that Pakistani jets and gunships bombing the mountains or houses of common tribesmen,” said a Taliban commander and close relative of Maulvi Faqir who pleaded anonymity.
He challenged the government’s claim that 2,500 militants had been killed during the Bajaur operation.
This is the first US drone attack in Bajaur after May 14, 2008 in which senior al-Qaeda commander and technical expert Abu Suleman was killed.
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