Pakistan Views

Security forces are using helicopter gun ships to root out militants from suspected hideouts in Ladha and Makin regions of South Waziristan.

Security forces have shifted heavy artillery and tanks from Jandola to Chakmalay and Saplatui areas. A massive operation against militants is expected in these areas.

Sources said that the army operation follows an earlier attack by militants on a security forces camp and the cadet college in Razmak, located in North Waziristan.

The cadet college suffered minor damage, while the boundary wall of the security camp was destroyed. No casualties were reported.

Pakistani helicopter gunships and artillery pounded militant positions on Sunday in South Waziristan, residents and officials said.

The military said they fired artillery after coming under attack in Ladha village of South Waziristan district, where a Taliban commander linked to the martyrdom of former premier Benazir Bhutto is said to be hiding.

“At 0100 hours miscreants fired 12.7 millimetres gun from old Ladha to Ladha observation post. Security forces retaliated with artillery guns fire,” a military statement said, but gave no casualties.

Residents however said that shells fired from six helicopter gunships killed two people and left seven others wounded, but officials were not immediately available to confirm the deaths.

The military said on Saturday that troops captured 50 Islamist militants in an operation in the rugged Chaghmalai and Ladha areas of South Waziristan.

The clashes started after hundreds of heavily armed militants overran Sararogha fort on Wednesday, killing seven soldiers and leaving another 15 troops missing, presumed kidnapped.

The fierce clashes were the latest in a series to rock the tribal region, the stronghold of wanted Islamist warlord Baitullah Mehsud and his al Qaeda and Taliban allies.

Militants have stepped up attacks on troops in the region since Benazir was martyred in a gun and bomb attack last month.

Pakistan was already on high alert for the Muslim festival of Ashura, being observed on Sunday.

Seven Pakistani soldiers and over 40 Islamic militants were killed in clashes after hundreds of rebels captured a paramilitary fort near the Afghan border, the army said Wednesday. Heavy fighting erupted after militants armed with rocket launchers attacked the outpost at Sararogha town in the South Waziristan tribal district overnight”, military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said. “Yesterday around midnight 400 miscreants attacked the Frontier Corps at Sararogha. There are reports of 40 to 50 dead miscreants, while seven personnel embraced martyrdom,” Abbas said.

Militants in northwest Pakistan attacked a paramilitary camp and up to 30 soldiers were missing, security officials said on Wednesday.The militants attacked the camp in the South Waziristan region on the Afghan border late on Tuesday, the officials said. A military official said there had been fighting in the area but he did not have details.”About 700 militants attacked the fort at Sara Rogha at about 9:30 p.m. (1630 GMT on Tuesday) and communication with the fort was cut at around 2 a.m.,” a security official said. “There were about 37 paramilitary troops in the fort and seven of them were able to escape while the rest of them are missing and feared dead,” said the official, who declined to be identified.Security forces have been battling al Qaeda-linked militants in South Waziristan for several years.Separately, a bomb exploded as a military patrol was passing along a road in the Swat valley in North West Frontier Province on Wednesday but there was no immediate word on casualties, police said.

Two Uzbek militants were killed Sunday when a group of them attacked the house of a pro-government tribal elder in troubled tribal region near the Afghan border, officials said.

The pre-dawn clash erupted when dozens of militants launched an attack on the house of Khan Khannan in South Waziristan district, local administration official Ayaz Mandokhel told AFP.

Khannan’s men guarding the house retaliated and killed two Uzbek militants, he said, adding that “their bodies were still lying in the area.” Other militants fled after the clash, he said. Khannan is a pro-government elder in Shakai where gunmen shot dead six members of a tribal peace committee about one week ago.

The tribesmen blame those killings on Baitullah Mehsud, a leading warlord who has also been accused by the government of masterminding last month’s assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto. The military in a statement said security forces apprehended 41 suspected militants including local commander Mohammad Raheem, a close relative of Fazlullah, during a search operation.

Suspected militants fatally shot eight tribal leaders involved in efforts to broker a cease-fire between security forces and insurgents in South Waziristan, foreign news agency reported on Monday.

The men were killed in separate attacks late Sunday and early Monday in South Waziristan tribal region, reports said.

Gunmen killed three of the men at a market in Wana, the region’s main town, while the other five were shot to death in attacks at their homes in a town north of Wana.

The authorities have not confirmed the incident immediately.

Security forces of Pakistan have killed up to 25 al Qaeda linked militants in fighting that began on Tuesday in the South Waziristan region on the Afghan border, the military said.
Many militants took refuge in South Waziristan and other parts of country’s lawless tribal lands after US-led troops toppled the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 2001.
The government has accused a wanted militant leader based in South Waziristan, Baitullah Mehsud, of ordering the Dec. 27 martyrdom of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto in a gun and bomb attack in Rawalpindi.
The latest clashes broke out in South Waziristan after militants kidnapped four paramilitary troops from a checkpost.
“We killed five miscreants yesterday and 15 to 20 in overnight fighting,” military spokesman Major-General Waheed Arshad said on Wednesday.
At least 60 militants had been captured in the region since Tuesday, he said.
Tribal elders were trying to negotiate the release of the four abducted troops, he said.
Arshad said he had no information about any operation to go after Mehsud, the militant commander accused of assassination of Benazir.
A spokesman for Mehsud said the militant chief was not involved in Benazir’s martyrdom.