MIRANSHAH, Pakistan: Pakistan’s Army said yesterday that it was investigating the crash of a suspected unmanned US spy plane near the Afghan border amid claims by tribesmen they had shot it down.
Separately, Pakistani airstrikes on a militant tunnel network in another frontier tribal region killed 20 Taleban, as military operations continued in the wake of the deadly weekend bombing of a top Islamabad hotel.
In a further sign of the unrest gripping the country, a suicide bomber blew himself up near a military vehicle in the southwestern city of Quetta yesterday, killing a girl and injuring 13 people.
The drone crash late Tuesday in the South Waziristan tribal zone, a haven for Al-Qaeda and Taleban militants, came as tensions grew between Washington and Islamabad over US missile strikes and incursions on Pakistani soil.
“A surveillance unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), while flying over the Pak-Afghan border last night, crash-landed on this side of the border ... apparently due to malfunctioning,” a Pakistani military spokesman said in a statement.
“The wreckage of the UAV has been recovered from the site by the security forces personnel and the matter is under detailed investigation,” the spokesman said. It did not say who the drone belonged to but security officials said it was an American aircraft.
Pakistani officials said troops had not fired on the drone and that intelligence operatives had no reports of any gunfire when the vehicle was shot down. But residents in the town of Angoor Adda, where the spy plane crashed, insisted tribesmen shot it down.
“This pilotless plane was flying over Waziristan unchecked overnight when it was shot down at low altitude by residents of the area near the Afghan border,” Malik Mirgul, a tribal elder in Angoor Adda, told AFP. Tribesmen had picked up the drone but troops then retrieved it, officials said.
Public anger has mounted in Pakistan over an increase in US missile strikes in recent weeks, and the subject came up during talks in New York on Tuesday between US President George W. Bush and Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari.
Pakistani tribesmen have come to fear the sound of US drones flying over their villages near the Afghan border, knowing they often presage deadly missile attacks targeting Islamist militants.
Residents said the unmanned aircraft resumed flights over South Waziristan and neighboring North Waziristan yesterday morning. They also launched sorties over the wreckage of the downed drone.
In North Waziristan, tribesmen perched on hills opened fire on another spy plane that flew low over the militant hotspot district of Mir Ali, residents and local government officials said. The crash came two days after Pakistani officials said troops opened fire to repel two US helicopter gunships that crossed into North Waziristan.
In the Bajaur tribal region further north, security officials said jets and helicopter gunships pounded underground militant tunnels, killing 13 militants overnight and another seven yesterday morning.
Pakistani warplanes pounded a militant tunnel network in a tribal region bordering Afghanistan, killing 20 Taleban. The airstrikes happened in Bajaur, where a major army operation launched in August has killed more than 800 people — most of them militants — and displaced 300,000 civilians.
“At least 13 people were killed in repeated raids overnight in Rashakai, Khazana and Takhata towns where the militants had underground tunnels,” a local security official said on condition of anonymity.
