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| Afghanistan/South Asia |
| 1 dead, 14 injured in latest Waziristan violence |
| 2004-07-13 |
| A minor girl was killed and at least 14 people, including six members of security forces, were wounded as fierce clashes between militants and paramilitary forces continued in the troubled South Waziristan region on Monday. The three-day-long intense fighting between security forces and militants is taking a heavy toll on civilians as a large number of families were seen moving to safer places to escape the relentless shelling, eyewitnesses said. At least six soldiers were wounded, two of them seriously, when an army vehicle hit a land-mine in Azam Warsak near the Afghan border. The seriously wounded soldiers were flown to Peshawar. Witnesses said the army vehicle was carrying water for soldiers when it hit the explosive device on the road. Inter services Public Relations (ISPR) Director-General Maj-Gen Shaukat Sultan confirmed the incident, but did not give exact figures of casualties. Talking to Dawn by telephone, the spokesman said that unprovoked attacks by militants were inviting the artillery response from the army as overall situation in the region was under control. Unofficial reports said that the militants had destroyed a checkpoint of the security forces in the Pine-forest-covered Mantoi area, north of Shkai, on Sunday night. The number of casualties could not be ascertained in that attack. Thousands of paramilitary forces and army soldiers and hardened militants were exchanging heavy artillery shells and machineguns fire and missiles, targeting each other round the clock. Reports collected from different sources said that one minor girl was killed and eight others, including four women, were wounded in Santoi, Mantoi, Dand and Owarbad areas, north of Shakai. In Dand area an artillery shell hit a house of a tribesman in Malikshahi, wounding four women. Four people, including two children, were wounded seriously when a shell hit the house of Kalam Mahsud in Owarbad area while a religious seminary also came under attack in Santoi area. The building was partially damaged. Reports said that the ongoing clashes between the troops and the foreign militants and their local supporters had badly affected life in the region. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |