Pakistan Views

Clashes between two religious groups at the valley Tera area in Khyber Agency has left 5 more people dead and 8 others injured here on Monday night. Meanwhile, U.S spy planes kept flying over tribal areas.

According to sources, clash amid Lashkar-e-Islam and Ansar-ul-Islam resulted in heavy loss of life on both sides. Both tribes used advanced machinery and heavy grenades.

Three week-long clashes have so far killed 133 people and 200 wounded. Meanwhile, the U.S. fly planes continued hovering over Bajor Agency, South and North Waziristan, Khyber Agency, Karm Agency and Mahmoud Agency spilling out panic among tribesmen.

Jirga was set to meet on Tuesday to brief political administration of Khyber Agency after holding successful talks with Lashkar-i-Islam chief Mangal Bagh on Monday.

The Jirga would appraise the administration about its talks with the militant organization chief and his demands and apprehensions on ongoing operation in the area.

Earlier, Mangal Bagh assured the jirga members during their talks, held at Tirah valley Monday night that his organization would fully co-operate with the government in detaining lawbreaker elements and would not resist the ongoing operation carried out in the agency by the law enforcers.

Jirga and the LI chief discussed the steps to resume peace in the agency and to end ongoing security forces’ operation during their talks.

At least seven people were killed and nine others injured in a missile attack on the headquarters of a banned outfit in Tehsil Bara of Khyber Agency, where an operation against what the security forces called ‘offensive against miscreants’ was under way.

Haji Namdar, chief of the banned outfit said it was a US missile attack while eyewitnesses said that before the explosion occurred at 4am they heard the sounds of planes and lights and finally a huge blast. Seven bodies have been recovered from the HQ so far and more bodies are feared to be still under the debris. However, it was not clear that either it was a missile attack or a bomb blast. The chief of the banned organisation remained unhurt in the blast.

Security forces have halted the operation in Bara, Khyber Agency since last night and no fresh offensive has been launched in the area. Police on Monday claimed securing Peshawar city. “We had established 30 plus entry points for the posh Hayatabad Township where 8 to 10 police mobiles have been put on alert,” Dr Mohammad Sulman, top police official of the metropolis said. He said that the forces have identified pockets of the anti-social elements and outlaws in different areas adjacent to Khyber Agency.

Meanwhile, Qazi Hussein Ahmad said that Peshawar has no threat from the Taliban, adding that the growing concern is uncalled for. Criticising the so-called US war on terror, he said the United States through a plan seeking excuse to make intervention in Fata, NWFP and Balochistan. He said the US is an enemy and not a friend and is deadly against the nuclear assets of Pakistan.

Qazi said the government of Pakistan is providing opportunity to the US for interference in the country’s affairs. Senior Minister Bashir Ahmad Bilour while speaking in the provincial assembly refuted the rumours of deadlock in Swat peace deal saying that the agreement is being honoured by both sides while there was also closed contacts.

He said the provincial government was still pursuing the policy of maintaining peace through dialogue, while there was complete harmony and writ of the government all over the province and no hurdle would be tolerated in this regard.

Regarding operation in Bara or other parts of Khyber Agency, he said the provincial government would prefer negotiations for ensuring peace in settled areas. He said the lawmakers and the general public should not be afraid of anything in this regard.

An explosion destroyed the home of a militant in Khyber Agency on Monday, killing seven people, but the cause of the blast was not clear, residents said. Security forces launched an offensive in Khyber Agency on Saturday to push back militants who have been threatening the city of Peshawar.”The house belonged to a member of the Haji Namdar group and seven people were killed,” said Sher Khan, a resident of the town of Bara where the blast took place. Haji Namdar leads a militant faction in Khyber, home to the Khyber Pass through which supplies for Western forces in Afghanistan pass.

The crackdown in Khyber tribal region followed increased sightings of Taliban fighters in Peshawar. “There has been no resistance, so far. No casualties, so far,” Malik Naveed Khan, the police chief of North West Frontier Province (NWFP) told Reuters.Another senior security official said the offensive was focused on nearby Bara town, close to the Afghan border. A curfew had been ordered and roads to the town closed, he said. Fawad Khan, a resident, told Reuters by telephone that the paramilitary troops fired three mortar shells at the hills overlooking Bara.

“People are very scared,” Khan said.”They haven’t yet imposed a strict curfew but police are urging the people to stay inside their homes”In Peshawar, paramilitary soldiers set up bunkers in Hayatabad, a neighbourhood close to Khyber, and patrolled the streets in vehicles mounted with machine guns.The historic Khyber Pass provides the main road link to Afghanistan, and the region has long been known as a den for smugglers and criminals.Militants have become active in Khyber over the past year, and in recent weeks they began roaming into some neighbourhoods of Peshawar.

Riding in on the back of pick-up trucks, fighters armed with Kalashnikovs have threatened owners of music and video shops to close down, and ordered barbers to stop shaving men’s beards.Last Saturday, they also kidnapped 25 Christians, though they released them 12 hours later.The brazen presence of the Taliban in Peshawar stoked fears among the residents that the militants would eventually take over the city, although it is home to the main army garrison in the northwest. Security experts said the appearance of the Taliban in Peshawar reflected the military and political failure to stop the Islamist tide rolling in from the semi-autonomous tribal areas that have become strongholds for the Taliban and al Qaeda.

Seven persons were killed in gunfight between two warring groups in tehsil Tirah of Khyber tribal region.

The death toll in week-long clashes between Lashkar-e-Islam and Ansar-ul-Islam groups in Khyber Agency has reached to 68 with fresh fatalities.

The security agencies have cordoned off Bara area in the tribal region.

Prominent religious scholar and shora member of Jammat-i-Islami(JI) FATA Maulana Rahim Gul has been assassinated in tehsil Jamrood of Khyber Agency.
Sources said that unknown persons entered into the house of Maulana Rahim and opened fire at him while he was sleeping. Maulana Rahim was died on the spot whose body has been sent to tehsil Landi Kotal.
Maulana Gul Rahim’s funeral prayer would be offered in his ancestral town Loi Shalman at 5:00 pm.
Jammat-i-Islami has strongly denounced the killing of Maulana Gul Rahim.

At least, 22 people were killed and more than a dozen injured on Saturday in armed clashes between two rival Sunni Muslim groups in Tera area of district Khyber Agency bordering Afghanistan, officials said. The firefight erupted when hundreds of heavily armed fighters from Lashkar Islami attacked the stronghold of their rival Ansarul Islam in Tera area of tribal district Khyber Agency.

“The sides targeted each other’s positions with rocket fire and light machine guns,” said an official of the local government in the semi-autonomous area. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said 22 killings on both sides had been confirmed, but the death toll could rise much higher as some of the bodies could not be moved due to the intense ongoing clashes. Up to 14 have been reported injured so far.

Lahkar Islami is led by a firebrand cleric Mangal Bagh, who follows the puritanical Deobandi form of Sunni Islam and has close links with the former ruling extremist Taliban in Afghanistan. He has tried to impose Taliban-style rule in Khyber Agency. On the other hand, the rival Ansarul Islam practices the more mystical Sufism. Both organisations have previously fought for dominance in the region and hundreds of their men have been killed in the fighting.

A suicide bomber detonated his explosives at the office of Islamic group in Khyber Agency on Thursday, killing 10 people and wounding around a dozen, a security official said.”The bomber entered the office and blew himself up among dozens of workers of the organisation,” a senior security official told AFP.The bomber targeted the office of the group called Tanzeem Amar Bil-maruf wal Nahi Al-munkar (Organisation for Promotion of Virtue and Suppression of Vice), in Khyber district near the provincial capital Peshawar.It was the second attack in less than a week after Taliban killed four people including two policemen in a car bomb in the northwestern city of Mardan.An official of the shadowy group also confirmed the attack and said the bomber was a teenager who wanted to kill the head of the group, Haji Namdar, who escaped unhurt.Local officials said it was the first attack on a pro-Taliban outfit which could be linked to internal turf rivalry between Taliban groups in the tribal region.

At least 22 people were killed and dozens other injured in the clashes between two confrontational factions here on Wednesday night in Khyber Agency.The gunbattle has come to a halt in the wee hours of Thursday morning.According to sources, the two rival groups entered into exchanging the firing in Khyber Agency area of Jamrood late Wednesday night.Both sides used light to heavy arms against one another, killing 22 men and injuring several others.A mass exodus from the area is being witnessed, as the people are frightened.
After the ceasefire, the injured were transported to the hospital, however the whole area still wears tense looks.