PESHAWAR: A suspected US missile strike killed 10 militants at a training camp in a Pakistani tribal area, while 25 people died in fresh clashes near the Afghan border, officials said yesterday.
The violence in the ethnic Pashtun tribal regions along the mountainous frontier comes amid mounting US pressure for Islamabad to tackle rebels who are launching attacks on international forces in Afghanistan.
Four missiles hit the camp in the South Waziristan region, which was run by a militant from the Hezb-e-Islami group of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, security officials said.
“At least 10 militants were killed in the strikes” late Tuesday, a senior Pakistani security official said. “There were reports about the presence of Arab, Turkmen and local militants. This is their work,” he added, referring to US-led coalition forces deployed across the border in Afghanistan.
In Kabul, the US military said the missiles were not fired by either NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) or the US-led coalition. “This is not true. We have no reports of missiles being fired into Pakistan,” US-led coalition spokesman Lt. Nathan Perry said.
The US Central Intelligence Agency is also known to operate pilotless drone aircraft armed with missiles, but it was not available for comment. Another security official said the camp was run by a local militant, Zanjir Wazir, who he described as the “local commander of Hezb-e-Islami, Afghanistan.”
“It is not clear whether Wazir survived the attack or not, but his brother Abdur Rehman and one of their close relatives, Abdul Salam, were killed in the strike,” he added. Hekmatyar himself was not in the camp and is believed to be in Afghanistan, officials said.
The elusive militant leader is wanted by Kabul and Washington.
Witnesses said the missiles destroyed two houses close to each other and rescue workers were seen removing debris amid fears that more people could be trapped inside.
Local militants cordoned off the area and journalists were not allowed access to the site. Residents said the houses were part of a militant training camp.
Pakistan has protested over a wave of missile strikes attributed to US-led forces in Afghanistan in recent months which have killed dozens of people.
Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani urged US President George W. Bush during talks last month not to act “unilaterally” against militants in Pakistan.
At least 25 people, mostly militants, were killed yesterday when Pakistani helicopter gunships strafed villages in Bajaur, taking the death toll from a week of fighting there to more than 180, officials and witnesses said.
Residents said people were fleeing to safer places in adjoining areas but Taleban militants were erecting roadblocks to prevent the exodus.
Separately yesterday, a gunman shot dead a militant leader, Haji Namdar, as he taught at a religious school in the Khyber tribal region near the northwestern city of Peshawar, officials said.
In the latest incident a car bomb targeting factory workers killed two pedestrians and injured four others in the remote southwestern town of Hub, senior police official Habibullah Sherani said.
Meanwhile, a bomb exploded outside a police station in Lahore yesterday, killing three people, police said. About 24 people were wounded, they said.
