Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Blasts kill 9 in Pakistan militant stronghold (11:25 a.m.)
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Missiles fired from U.S. drone aircraft hit a seminary and houses associated with a Taliban
commander, killing at least nine people, including both militants and civilians, officials and witnesses say.
With violence spiraling in Afghanistan, Washington is becoming more aggressive about insurgent havens abutting the Afghan border, despite the strain it places on relations with Pakistan ahead of the swearing in of a new president on Tuesday.
Monday's incident occurred in a village in North Waziristan, a militant stronghold in Pakistan's tribal belt and a possible hiding
place for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri.
Residents told of seeing two Predator drones in the sky shortly before multiple explosions hit a seminary and several nearby houses in the village of Dande Darba Khel.
A Pakistani intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of his job, said three
suspected foreign militants and two children were among the dead.
1st Lt. Nathan Perry, a spokesman for the U.S. military coalition in Afghanistan, said he had no information that he could release on the matter. He did not deny coalition involvement.
The targets were associated with Jalaluddin Haqqani, a veteran of the fight against Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s who American commanders now count among their most dangerous foes.
Haqqani and his son, Siraj, have been linked to attacks this year including an attempt to kill Afghan President Hamid Karzai and a suicide attack on a hotel in Kabul. Haqqani network operatives plague U.S. forces in Afghanistan's eastern Khost province with
ambushes and roadside bombs.
Reports varied on casualties in Monday's attack. The intelligence official, citing informers, said 12 people died - three suspected
foreign militants, two local men, four women and three children.
A second Pakistani intelligence official gave a similar account.
Neither identified the victims further.
Rehman Uddin, a Taliban militant who said he was at the scene, said 20 people died and 18 were injured. "Some of our brothers were killed, but most are women and children," Uddin told The Associated Press by telephone.
One of the homes hit belonged to Siraj Haqqani, but neither he nor his father were there at the time, Uddin said.
A highly unusual U.S.-led ground assault last week in the South Waziristan region was said to kill about 15 people and prompted loud protests from Islamabad - even threats of a military response to any repeat - but no public regrets from Washington. At least three other suspected U.S. missile attacks in the tribal belt have been reported in the last 10 days. (AP) |
