Pakistan 'army air strike kills dozens of civilians'

[sparklingway]

60 civilians killed in Tirah bombing

Sunday, April 11, 2010

By Said Nazir Afridi & Ashrafuddin Pirzada

BARA/JAMRUD: Sixty civilians were killed and as many sustained injuries when fighter jets bombed Sra Vella in Jamrud Tehsil’s Tirah Valley in Khyber Agency on Saturday, local sources said.

However, official sources claimed 35 militants were killed when jets hit their hideouts in the valley.

The injured were shifted to hospitals in Jamrud and Peshawar through the difficult hilly areas and most of them succumbed to their injuries on the way, the sources said.

Tribal sources said two fighter jets dropped heavy bombs on the house of Hameed Gul in the Sra Vella area in Tirah Valley around 10:00am. As a result, the house was turned into rubble and three children and two women were killed.

“After 10 minutes of the bombardment when the villagers and labourers working on nearby water channel approached the house to retrieve the bodies, the fighter jets again bombed the house killing and injuring more than 150 people,” Sadiq Khan, an injured and eyewitness, told this scribe in the Civil Hospital Jamrud.

He said all those killed and injured, including women, in the bombardment were from Kokikhel, a sub-tribe of Afridis and were innocent people having no links with the militants.

Some of the slain tribesmen included a tribal elder, Said Noor, Khana Baan, Taweez Gul, Shaoor Baaz, Bismillah Khan, Amrat, Aman Shah, Tor Jan, Mahabat Khan, Daulat Khan, Khalid, Asadullah, Shakirullah, Khair Muhammad, Aziz, Umer Khan, Abid Khan, Khalid, Zahoor, Saeed, Qari Asadullah, Khanzeb, Waheel, Sabeel, Subedar Samandar Khan, Zahoor and Malik Jan.

“We are neither associated with the Taliban nor the militant group Lashkar-e-Islam (LI) then why security forces killed my son,” Ameen Jan, the father of Saeed, told this scribe while carrying a coffin for his son in Jamrud Bazaar.

He said the house which was bombarded by fighter jets was owned by three brothers Sher Mat Khan, who is a soldier in the Pakistan Army, and Yarmat Khan and Qimat Khan, who are serving in the Shawal Rifles in the paramilitary Frontier Corps.

He expressed surprise that the military authorities did not know that security forces pounded and destroyed the house of their own soldiers.

Meanwhile, security forces claimed that 35 militants were killed when jets pounded their hideouts in Fasht Killay, Maharaba Tapo and Dowa areas in Tirah Valley early in the day. The sources said the area is considered to be the stronghold of the LI.

Security forces had been carrying out airstrikes against the hideouts of militants of the Mangal Bagh-led LI and the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in Tirah Valley in Khyber Agency for the last seven months.

It was the first time that fighter jets carried out bombardment in the Kokikhel area of Jamrud Tehsil.

The residents of Jamrud Tehsil resented the bombardment and asked the government to bring to justice those responsible for the killing of innocent people. They said innocent people were killed and maimed but the authorities were claiming to have eliminated militants.

 

[sparklingway]

High casualties were indicators but the figure of civilians killed is horrifying.

This should not have gone wrong and such a big strike will certainly be detrimental to the morale of the local people who are resisting the TTP.

 

[asad ikram]

really bad i think...PAF should have solid information abt terrorist before such attack..if this news is true then it will give -ve results on the operations againts terrorist...

 

[Kompromat]

I do think this would do more bad than good --- very sad indeed.

Poor job by PAF on this Part

 

[Gin ka Pakistan]

Investigation to highest level

 

[Creder]

Have any other agencies reported this sparkling ? according to the news posted by sir AjPirzada all of the people were militants..Why would civilians go near a area that was striked down just second ago to retrieve bodies ?

If this was a mistake on behalf of the authorities then i have no words, thats a lot of innocent lives..lets wait for the official confirmation before we jump to conclusions, our media doesnt care about reporting the actual news as long as they can create hysteria and panic

Officials say Pakistani strikes kill 96 militants

PARACHINAR, Pakistan – Pakistani airstrikes killed nearly 100 suspected militants in two northwest tribal regions Saturday, an apparent intensification of efforts by the army to mop up Taliban fighters fleeing a military operation farther south.

The strikes were carried out in the Orakzai and Khyber tribal regions.

In Orakzai, some 54 alleged militants were killed during ongoing clashes over a checkpoint in the Baizoti town area, local official Samiullah Khan told The Associated Press.

Another 42 people, most of them suspected insurgents, died in the Khyber tribal region when military jets pounded a hide-out the in Sra Walla area. The location was believed to be a gathering point for the Lashker-e-Islam insurgent group.

Two intelligence officials said jets pounded the area twice — once when local tribesmen were retrieving bodies from the rubble. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media on the record.

Local government official Rehan Khattak confirmed the strikes but refused to give a death toll.

The information could not be independently verified because access to the tribal areas is largely restricted.

The U.S. has endorsed Pakistan's efforts to eliminate militants using its tribal areas to wage attacks against Islamabad as well as Western troops across the border in Afghanistan.

Pakistan began an operation in Orakzai in mid-March and so far about 350 militants have been killed there. Nearby Kurram tribal area has also witnessed fighting, while there have long been on and off operations against militants in Khyber.

All three regions are believed to have become key destinations for Pakistani Taliban militants fleeing an army offensive against their network in the South Waziristan tribal area.

 

[Kompromat]

Guys Confirm it , Please -- i cant believe.

 

[sparklingway]

I do think this would do more bad than good --- very sad indeed.

Poor job by PAF on this Part

PAF did what it was asked to do so. They pounded the place. Intelligence Failure not PAF failure.

Have any other agencies reported this sparkling ? according to the news posted by sir AjPirzada all of the people were militants..Why would civilians go near a area that was striked down just second ago to retrieve bodies ?

If this was a mistake on behalf of the authorities then i have no words, thats a lot of innocent lives..lets wait for the official confirmation before we jump to conclusions, our media doesnt care about reporting the actual news as long as they can create hysteria and panick

The daily news is coming in. Maybe Dawn will report about this. Yes, I read that 105/96 militants were killed but right then I was scared that many might be civilians.

It seems as if these civilians might have been having a jirga with TTP or LI members.

Nobody is jumping to conclusions. It's a sad story if it is true.

 

[Creder]

so far no mention of civilian casualties, but we will have to wait and see

'Scores dead' in Pakistan air raids

The Pakistani military has killed nearly 100 people in air raids in tribal areas in the country's northwest, officials say.

The attacks were carried out on Saturday in the Orazkai and Khyber regions near the border with Afghanistan, they said.

In Orakzai, 54 people said to be "militants" by the Pakistani army were killed during clashes over a checkpoint near the town of Baizoti, Samiullah Khan, a local official, told the Associated Press news agency on Saturday.

His comments came after it emerged that another raid had killed more than 40 people in the Tirah area of the Khyber region.

"At least 42 militants of Lashkar-e-Islam were killed and two militant hideouts were also destroyed," Shafeerullah Wazir, the Khyber administration chief, said.

"The death toll may rise as dozens of others were also injured in the airstrike."

Death toll confirmed

A military official confirmed that the incident had taken place and the death toll was correct.

"The air strike was launched on a tip-off that a meeting of the Lashkar-e-Islam group was going on in Tirah," the official told the Agence France Presse news service.

The area where the attack took place adjoins the northwestern city of Peshawar, scene of a series of bomb attacks blamed on the Taliban in recent months and increasingly viewed as a seat of instability in Pakistan.

"There was an attack by a fixed-wing aircraft," Kamal Hyder, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Pakistan, said quoting witnesses.

"A jirga [tribal meeting] was hit. After that nearby residents came to pull people out of the rubble. Then a second and, maybe, even a third wave of attacks hit them."

The violence came as a Pakistani military offensive against Taliban-allied fighters in Orakzai entered its 18th day.

The UN announced on Friday that the deteriorating security situation in Orakzai and Kurram has forced 200,000 civilians to flee since November last year.

 

[Creder]

these are militants guys, the jirga meeting was at a residence that involved the jirga members holding meetings with the militants. every single news agency is reporting them as militants

The only word of civilian casualties is coming from a "militant spokseman" ~ Telegraph.co.uk

 

[deckingraj]

Bloody hell.. This is what is called collateral damage...If indeed this news is true then it is very very sad incident.....seeds to give birth to another 1000 terrorists....When you pound your own countrymen you got to be 1000% sure before you do so because operations can backfire like this....

 

[Creder]

Bloody hell.. This is what is called collateral damage...If indeed this news is true then it is very very sad incident.....seeds to give birth to another 1000 terrorists....When you pound your own countrymen you got to be 1000% sure before you do so because operations can backfire like this....

They weren't civilians as far as reports are concerned, every agency is reporting them as militants and that includes everything from hindustan times to telegraph to aljazeera

 

[deckingraj]

these are militants guys, every single news agency is reporting them as militants

The only word of civilian casualties is coming from a "militant spokseman" ~ Telegraph.co.uk

Umm not sure but are these news channels free and fair to report intelligence failure at such a big level??? You would know better than me but i heard that there are areas where journalist are not allowed to go....If these people were indeed terrorists then great job!!!

 

[sparklingway]

these are militants guys, the jirga meeting was at a residence that involved the jirga members holding meetings with the militants. every single news agency is reporting them as militants

The only word of civilian casualties is coming from a "militant spokseman" ~ Telegraph.co.uk

While I must give the benefit of the doubt to the authorities and believe that they must have confirmed the presence of militants, such high figures made me think otherwise. Jang group has been extremely supportive of the military operation and has downplayed comments of Taliban apologists and sympathizers for quite a while now.

They have reported it using their own reporters not a foreign agency. All other reports come from a single reporting source and given a context by the newspaper. There might have been an intelligence failure or the civilians joined in after the jets were given a go ahead.

We must look objectively but we support what the officials will say. It will be a PR disaster if civilians have been killed in such large numbers.

 

[Creder]

Umm not sure but are these news channels free and fair to report intelligence failure at such a big level??? You would know better than me but i heard that there are areas where journalist are not allowed to go....If these people were indeed terrorists then great job!!!

well im looking at reports from international agencies too including yours i.e hindustan times.

It will get more clear in the coming few hours but so far they are all classified as militants or people who were negotiating with the militants i.e the jirga members