ISLAMABAD, 22 June 2007 — North West Frontier Province Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani said yesterday the missile attack on a madrasa in Data Khail on Tuesday was carried out by foreign forces and “it is the duty of the federal government to take notice of such unprovoked attacks.”

He said the NWFP Assembly had already passed a resolution earlier in the day to condemn such attacks on the border regions of Pakistan.

Talking to journalists he said the federal government should bring it to the notice of the international community that unprovoked cross-border attacks were being carried out by foreign forces.

Earlier yesterday provincial deputies Maulana Amanat Ali and Shagufta Naz accused the allied forces operating in Afghanistan of carrying out the missile strike. They said innocent people were killed in the attack.

They said the government was insisting that those killed were Uzbeks and Arabs while at the same time saying that the bodies were beyond identification because they were badly burned.

Rahimullah Yousufzai, a journalist based in Peshawar told Arab News the authorities had failed to identify the bodies.

On Tuesday, three missiles fired at a compound in Data Khail killed 32 people. Some said it was a madrasa and the missiles were fired by NATO/allied forces operating in Afghanistan while the army said those killed were militants and the explosion occurred while they were making a bomb.

Pakistan Army had not carried out any operations in the area, army spokesman Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad said. An intelligence official said the missiles fired from Afghanistan destroyed the training facility for militants.

“The blast happened when these militants were making bombs, and there were several casualties,” Arshad said on Tuesday.

Other Pakistani intelligence officials, who also requested anonymity, said the compound lay about three kilometers inside Pakistan and was surrounded by forests. The officials said some militants were sitting in an open area of the madrasa when they were attacked, but they could not confirm whether the missiles were fired from Afghanistan.

Reference Against Prime Minister

National Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain yesterday sent disqualification reference against Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz to the Election Commission.

The reference was signed by 31 members from the combined opposition parties under Article 62 and 63 of the constitution. The opposition has charged Aziz with manipulating the stock market through his front man Arif Habib thereby illegally earning a huge amount.

Aziz’s attempt to privatize the Karachi Steel Mills was also mentioned in the reference. The Supreme Court had opposed the deal. Secretary Election Commission Kanwar Dilshad told Arab News on phone from Karachi he had not received the reference against the prime minister yet.

Three Killed in Blast

Three people were killed yesterday in a land mine explosion in Pakistan’s restive tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, officials said.

The blast occurred as a tractor hit a land mine planted by suspected militants in Khapeyanga village in the semi-autonomous Kurram tribal agency, local administrator Bashir Khan said.

Three members of the same family died in the blast, for which no one has accepted responsibility, Khan said.