Three soldiers, 25 Taliban killed in Pakistan clashes

Saturday, July 10, 2010, 5:39 am ET

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) –

Three Pakistani soldiers were killed as Pakistani Taliban fighters attacked security forces in a northwestern tribal area, sparking clashes in which 25 (Taliban fighters who are referred to in NATO media as "militants") were killed, officials said Saturday.

"Militants attacked an army patrol in Makeen district of South Waziristan area late Friday in which three soldiers were killed and eight wounded," a security official said.

Taliban fighters also attacked a security post in Kaniguram valley, 30 kilometres (about 18 miles) north of the region's main town of Wana overnight, injuring five soldiers, another security official said.

Military officials said troops launched retaliatory strikes, killing 25 militants in the two areas.

Independent confirmation of casualty figures is impossible because the area is closed to aid workers and journalists.

South Waziristan, considered a stronghold of militants and headquarters for the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), was the scene of a major government offensive against the insurgents last year.

The TTP is a major force behind a bombing campaign that has killed more than 3,500 people across Pakistan in three years.

Mohmand blast death toll rises to 106

The Daily Times, Pakistan, Sunday, July 11, 2010

PESHAWAR:

The death toll of Friday’s deadly suicide bomb blasts at the political offices in Mohmand Agency’s Yakka Ghund tehsil has climbed to 106, as many more of the wounded succumbed to injuries in hospitals, while 18 people are still missing, the political administration said on Saturday.

Local official Mairaj Mohammad confirmed the higher toll, saying there were 98 people receiving treatment in different hospitals. “Some of them are in critical condition,” AFP quoted him as saying. Local administration chief Rasool Khan said the toll could rise further, as rescue work was underway to recover victims believed to be trapped under pulverised buildings.

Meanwhile, the martyrs’ funeral prayers were offered after which they were laid to rest at their ancestral graveyards. Over 20 unidentified bodies were also buried. Efforts are being made to remove debris from the blast site. Further, the electricity supply and telephone system could not be restored in Yaka Ghund Bazaar, adding to people’s woes.

Separately, over 30 residents of Ambar tehsil visited the blast site in search of their missing relatives. staff report/afp

Pakistan bomb attacks claim 102 lives

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Lehaz Ali

The death toll from a suicide bombing and car bomb blast that devastated a tribal town has soared to 102 in one of Pakistan's deadliest attacks, officials said Saturday.

The explosions targeted a busy market in Yaka Ghund town in Pakistan's northwest tribal belt on Friday, destroying government buildings and shops and leaving victims buried under the rubble.

Local administration chief Rasool Khan said the death toll had jumped to 102, after he and other officials had earlier put the number of dead at 65.

"Some bodies were recovered from the spot and some died in hospitals overnight," he told AFP.

Another local official, Mairaj Mohammad, confirmed the higher toll and said there were 98 people receiving treatment in different hospitals. "Some of them are in critical condition," he said.

It was the deadliest attack in Pakistan since a massive car bomb destroyed a market crowded with women and children in the northwestern city of Peshawar in October 2009, killing 125 people.

Khan said the toll could rise further as rescue work was underway to recover victims who are feared trapped under pulverised buildings.

Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for Friday's blasts, saying the target was a gathering of pro-government tribal elders.

Qari Ikramullah, a spokesman for Taliban militants in the region, said in a telephone call to AFP that the elders were meeting in an administrator's office and planning to raise a lashkar, or tribal force, to fight the Taliban.

"We will attack such gatherings in future also," he said.

A Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked bombing spree across Pakistan has killed more than 3,500 people in three years since government troops besieged the radical Red Mosque in the capital Islamabad in July 2007.

Friday's blasts came just over a week after a double suicide attack on a Sufi shrine in Lahore, which killed 43 people.

Witnesses said the huge explosions Friday damaged an administration office, shops, a jail and other buildings in the small town not far from the border with Afghanistan, where 140,000 US-led foreign troops are fighting the Taliban.

The attack sent a pall of gloom over the town. Bodies wrapped in white shrouds were being brought to a local playground for funeral prayers, an AFP reporter saw.

At least 1,000 people gathered at a nearby graveyard where workers set about digging dozens of new graves.

"I lost two brothers, their bodies were found in pieces," 27-year-old drinks vendor Mohammad Siddiqullah told AFP after a burial ceremony.

Local official Mairaj Mohammad said more than 60 bodies were buried on Friday and around 30 were laid to rest on Saturday.

Pakistani Taliban fighters have carved out havens in the remote and craggy mountains of Pakistan's tribal belt which lies outside direct government control.

"The attack appears to be part of a sustained campaign to disrupt peace efforts in the region," said security analyst Imtiaz Gul, the author of a recently published book on the tribal region, "The Most Dangerous Place".

"There seems to be good coordination among forces, which are out to create instability and perpetrate violence".

Three Pakistani soldiers were killed Friday in two separate Taliban attacks on security forces in the lawless South Waziristan region on the Afghan border, prompting clashes that left 25 Pakistani Taliban fighters dead, security officials said Saturday.

South Waziristan, considered a stronghold of militants and headquarters for the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), was the scene of a major government offensive against the insurgents last year.