ISLAMABAD, 8 December 2005 — At least 15 people were killed in a clash between bandits and militants in a troubled region bordering Afghanistan. The clash was over extortion of money from local villagers. Militants strung up bodies of bandits and displayed the head of one on a pole yesterday after the clashes.
The bloodshed began yesterday when militants attacked bandits extorting money on a road near Miranshah, the main town of the North Waziristan region, said a government official in the northwestern city of Peshawar.
Ten bandits and five militants were killed in the gunbattle, which continued yesterday, he said.
The militants later hung up the bodies of five of the bandits, four from electricity pylons and one on a wall, and chanted “long live the Taleban” while shooting in the air, a resident said.
One of the corpses, hung from the pylon upside-down, had been decapitated. The head was placed on top of a nearby bamboo pole.
“The security situation there is fast deteriorating,” the official said.
North Waziristan is part of Pakistan’s semi-autonomous tribal belt which stretches through rugged mountains and deserts along the border with Afghanistan.
Many Al-Qaeda members fled to the region from Afghanistan after US-led forces ousted the country’s Taleban regime in late 2001, and were given shelter by militant sympathizers from conservative Pashtun tribes that inhabit both sides of the border.
The leader of the bandit gang, identified as Hakeem, was killed in the clash and four of his men taken hostage, the official said.
Militants and hundreds of their supporters burned several houses and warned residents not to give shelter to the bandits and their supporters, the resident said.
Most people were staying at home, said the resident, who added that government forces made no immediate move to intervene.
The clashes were the latest incidents in a spate of violence in the volatile region.
Meanwhile, four Pakistani soldiers have gone missing in this remote tribal belt and two of them may have been kidnapped by insurgents linked to Al-Qaeda, officials said yesterday.
Authorities had barred the soldiers from leaving their camp in the main South Waziristan town of Wana as a security measure but the four ventured out to visit a market, a security official in the town said.
“Four paramilitary soldiers are missing since last evening and two of them were seen being forced into a vehicle,” the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
A search has been launched.
“Yes, four law enforcement personnel are missing and local people have been involved in such incidents (in the past),” Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao told a press conference later.
Pakistan has deployed thousands of troops to hunt militants who sneaked into the area in late 2001 after a US-led invasion of Afghanistan, and their local supporters.
But militants continue to fire rockets at government and military installations in the area and tensions are high following a string of recent incidents.
A Pakistani journalist, Hayatullah Khan, was kidnapped on Monday after reporting on the alleged killing of an Al-Qaeda commander in North Waziristan.
Pakistani officials said Egyptian militant Hamza Rabia, who was allegedly number three in the Al-Qaeda hierarchy, died when munitions exploded inside a house last Thursday. Four other people also died.
“We are extensively negotiating with local jirgas (tribal councils) for the recovery of the journalist as well as the security personnel,” Sherpao said.
Relatives said there was no news of the journalist, who works for the Urdu-language daily Ausaf and the European Pressphoto Agency. He had earlier taken pictures of shrapnel apparently from a US missile that locals said killed Rabia.
