ISLAMABAD, 3 September 2007 — A bomb in the main town of Pakistan’s South Waziristan region on the Afghan border yesterday killed four people and wounded 10, an official said.
The explosion ripped through the pharmacy in Wana, the main town of South Waziristan tribal region, which borders Afghanistan, an intelligence official said. A doctor at a military hospital where the blast victims were taken, confirmed that four people were killed and 10 wounded in the explosion and one of the wounded was in a serious condition.
The bomb was apparently an attempt to kill a local militant, Mita Khan, who was at the pharmacy when the explosion occurred and was seriously hurt, the intelligence official said. Khan is loyal to Maulvi Nazir, a pro-government tribal militant, he said.
Separately, tribal elders were trying yesterday to secure the release of about 150 soldiers being held by militants in another part of South Waziristan. Militants captured 10 more soldiers in another northwestern tribal region on Saturday, an official said.
The soldiers disappeared on Thursday while traveling in about 17 trucks 40 km north of Wana. Intelligence officials said the militants, who objected to troops moving into their area, had taken the soldiers to mountain hide-outs. Militants captured 10 paramilitary soldiers in another northwestern tribal region on Saturday, a government official said.
Pro-Taleban militants said yesterday they had abducted the Pakistani soldiers, demanding the withdrawal of troops from tribal areas near the Afghan border in exchange for their release. “Our colleagues have captured them and put them in jails,” Zulfiqar Mehsud, a spokesman for the militants, told AFP. Mehsud said the fighters had “surrounded the soldiers and forced them to surrender” their weapons.
