PESHAWAR, 29 March 2006 — Gunmen loyal to rival clerics fought in Pakistan’s tribal region bordering Afghanistan, leaving at least 25 people dead. The clashes erupted late Monday after supporters of a Pakistani preacher tried to knock down a house which belonged to an Afghan religious leader’s faction, a tribal areas spokesman said.
The fighting with automatic weapons near the town of Bara in Khyber district follows about a year of tensions during which the two clerics used illegal private FM radio stations to criticize each other.
Spokesman Shah Zaman said five men of Pakistani preacher Mufti Munir Shakir were shot dead late Monday when they attempted to demolish the Afghan clan’s house.
In retaliation, Shakir’s men attacked tribesmen of Afghan rival Pir Saifur Rahman at around 2 a.m. (2100 GMT) yesterday, killing 18 of them, Zaman said.
Another two of Shakir’s men injured in the shooting later died, a local administration official said on condition of anonymity.
The Pakistani preacher’s group also took hostage an unspecified number of women and children, the official said. The situation was tense in the area and the local administration was trying to end fighting through a jirga, or tribal assembly, Zaman said.
Both clerics are supporters of Afghanistan’s former Taleban regime, many members of which fled across the border to Pakistan’s tribal areas after the movement was ousted by a US-led invasion in late 2001.
Tensions are already high in the border region following major clashes earlier this month between troops and pro-Taleban militants in the North Waziristan tribal area, which have left more than 200 insurgents dead.
Suspected militants blew up a checkpoint in Patosi village, some 25 kilometers east of Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan, late Monday, a security official told AFP. Separately a rocket fired by insurgents late Monday fell close to government buildings in Miranshah where Pakistani troops are camped, the official said on condition of anonymity. Neither attack caused any casualties, he said.
“Dead bodies are still lying there and paramilitary troops have sealed off all roads leading to that place,” Mohammed Nisar Afridi, vice president of a local trade union, told Reuters. Tensions in the area have intensified in the past three months since Mufti Shakir went on a local radio station to urge tribesmen to expel the Afghan preacher and his supporters, officials said.
Authorities in the Khyber agency had expelled both preachers during the past few weeks, but the radio broadcasts continued to stoke bad feeling between followers of the two clerics.
“We are not against Afghan refugees and do not want to expel them. The clashes took place due to differences in the religious beliefs of the two clerics,” said Haji Zareef, a tribal elder. Millions of Afghans fled to Pakistan during more than two decades of conflict in their homeland dating back to the Soviet occupation in 1979, and the Afghan preacher Saifur Rahman had lived in the Khyber region for decades.
Afridi said an emergency tribal jirga (meeting) had been called in an attempt to restore calm, while bazaars had closed and public transport had been suspended.
