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| Afghanistan |
| Harkat killing: Red faces in Pak |
| 2001-10-25 |
| Pakistani border officials on Wednesday fired tear gas to disperse stone-throwing demonstrators in Karachi after 35 Harkatul Mujahideen militants were killed by US bombing in Kabul, witnesses said. Border officials at Torkham crossing in North West Frontier Province had prevented the entry of eight bodies from among at least 20 members of the Pakistani-based militant group which is active in the Kashmir Valley. A crowd of more than 5,000 people had gathered in Karachi for funeral prayers for the militants. They grew angry after being told the authorities had refused to let eight of the bodies back into Pakistan. An official at Torkham said the bodies had arrived but been refused entry. âWe had instructions from higher authorities not to receive the bodies,â said the official, Bakhtiar Khan. The demonstrators, who stripped one policeman naked, vowed they would not leave the public square where the protest was staged until the government agreed the bodies could be returned to Pakistan. The Pakistan based Afghan Islamic Press said the eight bodies were sent back to the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad. Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesman Riaz Mohammad Khan said the government had no information about the deaths in Kabul or whether bodies had been refused. But he said: âFor quite some time the Pakistan government has impressed on the Afghanistan government that they should not allow any Pakistanis to be part of any of their forces.â The group was staying in a house in a military compound area called Daraluman in the Afghan capital Kabul. A Harkat spokesperson told Reuters in Muzaffarabad, state capital of Pakistani occupied Kashmir: âWe have unconfirmed reports that 35 fighters have been martyred. We have the names of 20 people who died in the attack.â The list of dead included six commanders of the group, including one Ustad Farooq from Lahore. The spokesman also named one Chacha Lahori, sometimes called Baba Lahori as a casualty of the bombing. This is the second time Harakatul Mujahindeen has lost men in US attacks on Afghanistan. Nine fighters were killed and several wounded in cruise missile attacks by the United States on a training camp in the eastern Khost area of Afghanistan in August 1998. That attack was launched after the, bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. The group's main leader, Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil, has not been spotted since Washington put the group's name on the list of 27 individuals and groups whose assets were frozen. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |