A missile apparently fired by a pilot-less plane hit a house in a village near Mir Ali in the North Waziristan Agency (NWA) late Monday night, killing 15 people — 10 suspected militants, two women and three minors.
Intelligence sources in the NWA said those killed also included Arab nationals but their identity was not known. The targeted house was in Khushali Torikhel, 12 kilometres south of Mir Ali town. The owner of the house, Madad Khan, believed to be a Taliban militant, survived the attack. But his guests sleeping in the Hujra (male guesthouse) perished in the missile strike at 1:15 am, and so did two women and three minors of his family.
Mir Ali, believed to be housing Uzbek militants, has remained the target of such attacks in the past, including the one in December 2005 that in Asoray village killed Hamza Rabia, the operational commander of al-Qaeda.
Only one missile was fired by the drone, which everybody in the village believed was the CIA-operated Predator plane often seen flying in the Waziristan skies. While some disputed the number of missiles fired, nobody was sure about the exact number.
US spy planes were seen hovering over the area for the past several days. “Two such planes made flights at a very low altitude on Monday,” tribal sources said. Local militants immediately cordoned off the area and started rescue operation during the night. “No one was allowed to enter the locality until all the bodies were removed from the targeted place,” an eyewitness privy to the rescue operation told The News.
He said that most of the bodies were mutilated beyond recognition and were all buried during the night. Tribal sources claimed that flights of the spy planes and the reports that Nato-led allied forces backed by the Afghan National Army (ANA) were building strength in Paktika, Paktia and Khost along the Pak-Afghan border had created panic among the local population. “Some 3,000 Nato and US troops, along with thousands of ANA personnel, are already deployed in these (Afghan) provinces,” the sources claimed.
These reports have created fear among the local population, especially as Pakistan withdrew its regular forces from the border towns of North and South Waziristan a few months back. The border along Afghanistan is now manned by the paramilitary forces.
The attack might prove a setback for the ongoing peace talks between the local Taliban and the security forces as it was carried out on the day when Taliban extended their ceasefire with the forces till the 10th of the next month. It was the second such occasion that the ceasefire announced unilaterally by the militants in the NWA on December 17 was extended.
So serious are these militants to the pact that their supreme commander Maulana Hafiz Gul Bahadar issued a warning to Baitullah-led militants in South Waziristan against attacking the military installations in their tribal agency.
The commander has, however, reiterated his commitment to the pact, saying the missile strike was a deliberate attempt by the allied forces to foil the ceasefire. AP adds: More than 500 people – including many high school and college students – rallied Tuesday in Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan, to demand an end to Pakistan’s military cooperation with the United States. Protest leaders called on the government to end the fighting in the tribal regions, while demonstrators chanted “Death to America”.