MIRANSHAH, 26 July 2007 — Militants fired a barrage of rockets into a town in northwest Pakistan early yesterday, killing at least 10 people and injuring 40 amid a wave of violence sweeping the country.
Four houses were destroyed in the rocket attack on Bannu, a town on the fringes of the restive North Waziristan tribal zone, where the United States says Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network has set up safe havens.
One woman died and seven other civilians were killed instantly and another person died on the way to hospital, local police officer Mohammad Ghulam told AFP, adding that seven policemen were among the injured. One of the injured died later.
Five rockets landed within 30 minutes soon after midnight, causing loud explosions that spread panic in the town. “Police have sealed all entry and exit points and also tightened security in the town,” Ghulam said.
Police said the attack was a possible reprisal for the suicide on Tuesday of Abdullah Mehsud, a former Guantanamo detainee who killed himself with a grenade after being cornered by security forces in southwestern Pakistan.
Thousands of tribesmen brandishing Kalashnikovs and calling for holy war buried Mehsud yesterday in his hometown in South Waziristan. Mehsud was also wanted for the 2004 kidnap of two Chinese engineers.
“Commander Mehsud died a hero’s death,” local Taleban commander Noor Sayed told the gathering at Nano, 40 kilometers from Wana, the main town in the area, according to officials and witnesses.
“He did not surrender to the forces working for the infidels and preferred to die in an honorable way, setting an example for all mujahedeen to follow,” he added. Mehsud was believed to be linked to the wave of suicide and other militant attacks that claimed more than 200 lives since the army siege of the capital’s Red Mosque began on July 3. Pakistani authorities started demolishing the battle-scarred madrasa in the Red Mosque yesterday. Authorities say the government decided to raze the four-story Jamia Hafsa madrasa as its structure had been badly weakened by the fierce battles in the compound between security forces and the militants.
In a separate attack late Tuesday, two unidentified gunmen shot dead a Taleban commander outside his home in the border crossing town of Chaman in the country’s southwest, police sources said.
Qari Naimatullah, who was teaching at a madrasa, was an associate of the governor of Afghanistan’s Khost province during the 1996-2001 Taleban regime. Police said the motive for the killing was not immediately clear.
Violence has also surged along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan after pro-Taleban militants in North Waziristan scrapped a peace agreement with the government. Suspected militants blew up a security checkpoint, a school and a government office early yesterday in Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan, and fired a rocket at an army camp, local officials said. No casualties were reported in the attacks.
Residents in the town said all government offices and banks were shut down for the second day running due to the security situation, while officials said there was a ban on all traffic in the district between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m.
The ban followed reports that armed militants were moving around in pick-up trucks with tinted windows.
Pakistani authorities have been trying to revive the peace deal in North Waziristan, but US President George W. Bush last week criticized it and said that Musharraf had realized it was not working.
Meanwhile, according to reports available from security sources and diplomats, “Pakistan and the United States have agreed to carry out joint operations against those targets which the US intelligence identified as Al-Qaeda hide-outs.
