ISLAMABAD, 1 March 2004 — President Pervez Musharraf yesterday ordered a full probe into the killing of 13 people in a clash between Pakistani troops and gunmen in a remote tribal area near the Afghan border, officials said.
“President Musharraf has directed the concerned authorities to conduct an immediate inquiry and ascertain details of the sequence of events that led to the deaths of 13 persons and injuries to six others,” an official statement said.
In his message to the bereaved families, Musharraf expressed his “profound grief and sorrow over the incident” near Wana in South Waziristan area, some 300 kilometers (180 miles) southwest of Islamabad on Saturday.
He also announced compensation of 100,000 rupees (about $3,500) for the families of those killed and 50,000 rupees for the injured, it said.
Officials said this amount would be in addition to similar compensation already announced by the local administration.
Earlier, opposition MPs in the Senate (upper house) slammed the “killings of innocent civilians by the security agencies” in the region.
A military spokesman said Saturday’s casualties occurred when civilians were caught in the crossfire between army soldiers and suspected terrorists in Wana area, where a military operation to hunt down Al-Qaeda and Taleban fugitives was under way.
He said two to three vehicles came toward a Frontier Corps (FC) checkpoint and fired on the post early Saturday.
“The FC retaliated and in the crossfire there have been a few civilian casualties who may possibly be terrorists,” the spokesman said in a statement on Saturday.
The spokesman said 16 people had been arrested. Opposition parties claiming that the victims were “innocent people” staged a walkout to protest the shootings.
“They were not terrorists, they were civilian people,” Sen. Khursheed Ahmed of the six-party Islamic alliance told reporters, insisting that 13 people were killed as two more died later.
The target was a passenger bus, he said.
“Either it was an error of judgment or a planned act and there was no justification for it,” Ahmed added. Water and Power Minister Aftab Sherpao told the Senate that a high-powered committee had been formed to investigate the incident.
Sherpao “regretted” the incident but said it should be viewed against the background of national security. Leader of the house Wasim Sajjad said the government was determnined “to root out terrorism in all its manifestations. It is in the interest of Pakistan and everyone should cooperate with the government in this noble cause.”
South Waziristan has long been considered a sanctuary of Taleban and Al-Qaeda fugitives who fled Afghanistan in late 2001 when US-led forces ousted the Taleban’s hard-line Afghan regime.
Pakistan moved regular troops into the rugged tribal terrain for the first time in its history two years ago when it deployed tens of thousands of soldiers along the porous border. A key ally in the US-led war on terrorism, Pakistan has arrested more than 500 Al-Qaeda and Taleban suspects.
Last week troops rounded up some two dozen people and seized weapons, ammunition, audio cassettes, documents and passports during a raid on suspected hide-outs in a village in South Waziristan.
Pakistani military said the raid was conducted after the militants ignored a Feb. 20 deadline to surrender and the government received a tipoff about their hide-outs.
Meanwhile, two missiles were fired yesterday at a military checkpost in a remote tribal region but caused no casualties, officials said.
Mohammad Azam Khan, top administrative official in South Waziristan, told Reuters that two missiles were fired at a military checkpost in the village of Shulam yesterday morning. “There were no casualties or damage. But we have asked the local tribe to identify and surrender those involved in the incident,” he said.
