ISLAMABAD, 9 February 2005 — An international media rights group yesterday condemned the killing of two journalists in an attack on their bus in Pakistan’s rugged tribal region, where they were returning from a ceremony marking the surrender of a militant. The government vowed to track down those responsible and an intelligence official said security personnel had examined the site of the killings.
“The attack on journalists is an act of terrorism aimed at sabotaging the peace process in South Waziristan,” Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao said, adding that the attackers would be brought to justice.
Paris-based Reporters Without Borders expressed “revulsion” over the deaths of Mir Nawab, a freelance journalist who worked as a cameraman for Associated Press Television News and as a reporter for a local newspaper, and Allah Noor, a reporter for The Nation, an English-language Pakistani newspaper.
“This cowardly murder should not go unpunished,” the group said.
Assailants armed with AK-47 assault rifles fired on a bus carrying the journalists near Wana, the main town in the South Waziristan tribal region. Two other journalists were wounded, including Anwar Shakir, a reporter for Agence France-Presse who was shot in the back. He was in a hospital and was expected to recover. Officials said five journalists were returning to Wana from Sara Rugha, 40 km to the northeast, when two gunmen sprayed their van with bullets.
Two others, BBC stringer Dilawar Khan Wazir and Malik Hassan from a regional daily, escaped unhurt. Al-Jazeera journalist Zardad Khan, who was earlier thought to be in the car, left the vehicle before the attack.
No one claimed responsibility for Monday’s attack. Authorities said local and foreign fighters were the chief suspects.
“These miscreants can be foreigners or locals. The government will eliminate them with help of the tribesmen,” Gov. Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah, who is responsible for administration of the tribal region, said. The Pakistani Senate also condemned the killings and called for the culprits to be punished. Yesterday, intelligence agents and local investigators examined the patch of road where the assailants overtook the journalists’ bus.
The attack occurred at about 7:30 p.m. on Monday as the reporters made their way back to town after a ceremony in Sararogha village, where the militant leader Baitullah Mehsud signed a deal to lay down his weapons in return for government amnesty.
Under the peace deal Mahsud — an alleged ally of a former Guantanamo Bay inmate accused of kidnapping two Chinese engineers last year — and dozens of supporters pledged not to harbor foreign militants.
