ISLAMABAD, 30 September 2005 — At least five paramilitary troops were killed yesterday and one injured in a suspected terrorist attack in Pakistan’s tribal region of South Waziristan, where government forces are fighting local and foreign militants, an official said.
According to sources, officials of political administration were on their way to Wana from Tank when they came under attack near Macchan Baba area. Attackers managed to flee from the scene. “We don’t know at the moment who they (the attackers) were,” Inayatullah Ghandapur, a government official said while adding that suspicion had fallen on militants.
South Waziristan has been a battlefield since Pakistan’s government moved troops there to flush out fighters from Afghanistan’s former Taleban regime and its allies in the Al-Qaeda terrorist network who are believed to be hiding in the region after US-led coalition forces ousted the fundamentalist regime in the neighboring country in late 2001.
In March 2004, Al-Qaeda-linked militants besieged and killed more than a dozen military soldiers in the bloodiest operation in the semiautonomous region.
The government claimed its forces have killed more than 174 mainly foreign terrorists of Uzbek, Chechen and Arab origin in the region and taken nearly 600 into custody.
An ally of the United States in the war on terrorism, Pakistan has arrested about 700 Al-Qaeda suspects, including some top-ranking leaders, since late 2001.
