Officials: Suspected U.S. drone strike kills 17 in Pakistan's tribal region
From Shaan Khan, CNN updated 4:15 AM EST, Sun January 6, 2013
Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- A suspected U.S. drone strike killed 17 people and wounded three Sunday in Pakistan's volatile tribal region, Pakistani intelligence officials said.
The strike occurred in Babar Ziarat, which borders the Pakistani provinces of North and South Waziristan, near the Afghan border, the officials said.
Those killed and injured in the strike were believed to be militants, the officials said.
The attack follows two suspected U.S. drone strikes in the same area last week that killed 15 people, including a Taliban commander with ties to the Pakistani military.
Taliban commander Mullah Nazir, also known as Maulvi Nazir Wazir, was killed in a strike in South Waziristan, officials said.
Nazir was at odds with the Pakistani Taliban over a peace agreement he signed with the Pakistani government in 2007. As part of the deal, he refused to attack the Pakistani government or military targets, though he was believed to be behind a number of attacks that targeted the U.S. military.
Nazir narrowly escaped a suicide bomb attack in early December. After the attack, he warned the Mehsud tribe, which includes Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud, to vacate South Waziristan or face consequences.
Also killed in that strike were two of Nazir's deputies, the officials said.
In recent years, the U.S. government has sharply stepped up the use of drone attacks in Pakistan's mostly ungoverned tribal region, widely believed to be a safe haven for militant groups fueling the insurgency in Afghanistan. U.S. officials say the drone strikes are an effective strategy against militant groups and insist civilian casualties are rare.
Drone attack in Pakistan kills at least 10: intelligence sources
By Saud Mehsud DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan | Sun Jan 6, 2013 3:25am EST
(Reuters) - A U.S. drone strike killed at least 10 people suspected to be Taliban fighters in Pakistan's northern tribal areas on Sunday, intelligence sources said, days after another drone strike killed a top militant leader in the area.
Between 10 and 12 people were killed in the attack on three compounds in Babar Pehari, South Waziristan, six intelligence sources said. More militants were believed to be in the compounds when they were hit, officials said, meaning the death toll may rise.
The compounds were believed to house fighters belonging to the Punjabi Taliban, a group with close links to al-Qaeda, intelligence officials said.
The Pakistan Taliban has established sanctuaries in the mountainous Babar area, 140 km (87 miles) northeast of Wana, the headquarters of South Waziristan, they added.
South Waziristan is controlled by the Pakistani army, which operates under an uneasy truce with militants from the local Wazir tribe.
Sunday's strike follows the death of Mullah Nazir, a Waziri militant leader, on Wednesday. Nazir supported attacks on American forces in Afghanistan but had signed two peace deals with the Pakistani army. On Sunday, thousands of his tribesmen protested against his killing.
Many Pakistanis say the drone strikes infringe the country's sovereignty, and are angry over civilian casualties they cause.
Others say the drones are the only way of killing militants who terrorize the local population in areas the Pakistani army is unwilling to patrol.
Drone strikes dramatically increased after U.S. President Barack Obama took office in 2009. There were only five drone strikes in 2007, but the number rose to 117 in 2010 before declining to 46 last year.
Exact casualty figures are difficult to verify. Most of those killed are militants, but some civilians have also been killed.
(Additional reporting by Jibran Ahmad in Peshwar; Writing by Katharine Houreld; Editing by Daniel Magnowski)
Pakistani paramedics on Saturday examined the bodies of bombing victims at a hospital in the western city of Quetta.
Grieving relatives declined to bury their dead until the government promised to track down those responsible for carrying out brazen attacks against Hazaras, a Shiite ethnic minority, in the city.
Government officials said a team, led by a high-ranking police official, was investigating.
Protests and sit-ins were also held in other major cities on Sunday, as Shiite leaders condemned the government’s inability of the government to curb the killings.
The police said that explosives were hidden in a water-supply truck. It remained unclear how the truck had managed to enter the busy market, avoiding detection by police and intelligence specialists. The police said the bomb was apparently set off by a remote-controlled device, possibly hidden in a rickshaw. The explosion caused a building to collapse, and three other structures were heavily damaged.
Shiite leaders have also called for a strike in Karachi, the southern port city, on Monday. The Muttahida Qaumi Movement, Karachi’s most powerful political party, said it would support a strike.
The growing sense of insecurity and vulnerability felt by Shiites was evident in angry speeches by leaders across the country on Sunday.
Allama Asghar Askari, a Shiite leader, sharply criticized the country’s law enforcement authorities at a rally here in the nation’s capital. “If the law-enforcement forces had targeted the militant strongholds with real intent, people would not have seen such a day,” Mr. Askari said to hundreds of protesters. One was holding up a placard that said “Stop Shiite genocide.”
Some Shiites have suggested that Army troops should be sent to Quetta to quell the sectarian violence, but for now neither the government nor the military has given any indication of a deployment.
The police in Quetta and the Frontier Corps, a provincial paramilitary force, have come under heavy criticism as violence has escalated and militants belonging to Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, the largest sectarian group, have targeted Shiites with impunity in Baluchistan Province, where Quetta is the capital.
“Militants term Hazaras as ‘impure’ and have vowed to ‘cleanse Quetta of their presence,’ ” Tahir Hussain, the city’s representative for the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, said in an interview.
The killings have forced at least 20,000 Hazaras to leave the city, Mr. Hussain said, adding that militants have a heavy presence in the Mastung district of Baluchistan Province. More than 300 Shiites, many of them Hazaras, have been killed in Baluchistan since 2008, according to Human Rights Watch.
The Frontier Corps and the police have shown little willingness to clamp down on militant strongholds in Mastung, Mr. Hussain said.
“They know who are the perpetrators,” he said. “But apart from giving empty assurances, the high-ups of law-enforcement have not done anything.”
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