MIRANSHAH, 27 June 2006 — Seven Pakistani soldiers were killed and more than 20 wounded when a suicide bomber blew up his explosive-laden car at a checkpoint in the tribal region yesterday. Military spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan confirmed the casualties.
The attack was carried out a day after militants in North Waziristan declared a cease-fire. Pakistani authorities cautiously welcomed the truce offer.
It was the second suicide blast in a month in rugged North Waziristan. Security officials said paramilitary troops ordered the explosives-filled Toyota Corolla station wagon to stop as it neared a roadblock six kilometers east of Miranshah, the main town in the area.
“As it did the car blew up, killing seven soldiers who were guarding the checkpoint and injuring five other soldiers,” one official told AFP. “The bomber’s body was also blown to pieces.” The injured soldiers had been washing outside a mosque adjoining the checkpoint where they had come to offer prayers, another official said. Military helicopters airlifted them to hospital. All roads in the area were closed off after the attack.
The cease-fire announced late on Sunday by the militants was supposed to allow the meeting of a council of tribal elders, known as a jirga. The offer is “conditional, if the security forces attack us then we reserve the right to defend ourselves,” Abdullah Farhad, a purported spokesman for the militants said in telephone calls to local newspapers.
The rebels also gave a string of demands, including replacing army troops with tribal police; keeping soldiers in their barracks for the period of the cease-fire; and the release of all tribesmen detained in military operations.
“It was an attempt to sabotage our call for a cease-fire. Local Taleban have no connection with this attack,” Farhad, the militant commander told Reuters referring to the suicide attack.
“We welcome the announcement of a unilateral cease-fire,” said a spokesman for Ali Jan Aurakzai, governor of North West Frontier Province from where the near-lawless region is ruled. “The cease-fire is holding,” he said earlier yesterday. Aurakzai is trying to organize a tribal council to calm the tribes on the frontier.
Meanwhile, authorities arrested 35 Afghans from the nearby Bajaur tribal agency and deported them to Afghanistan, said administrator Javed Mahsud. They also demolished the house of a local tribesman in Bajaur on suspicion he was collaborating with pro-Taleban militants and detained six people, Mahsud said.
Arms Seized
A huge quantity of arms including anti-aircraft missiles, anti-tank rockets and heavy weapons were seized in Gwadar, in Balochistan. The weapons were stashed in a cave, Deputy Coordination Officer Khadim Hussain Rind told Arab News yesterday.
Five Die in Militants’ Attack
Dozens of militants stormed a suspected robber’s home yesterday, killing him and four relatives in northwestern Pakistan, an official said.
Extremist militants, including supporters of Afghanistan’s toppled Taleban regime, have become increasingly powerful in northwestern Pakistan’s tribal regions, meting out their own brand of punishment in areas where the police and army have limited reach.
In the latest incident, attackers fired assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades at the home of Malik Gul Dur, blamed by the militants for several armed robberies in North Waziristan, an intelligence official said.
Dur, his two brothers, an uncle and a nephew were killed in the raid in Shawal, a mountain valley west of North Waziristan’s main town of Miranshah, the official said.
