Ten militants were killed and seven others injured when fighter planes pounded the hideouts of militants in Orakzai Agency while a close aide of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) chief Baitullah Mehsud, Zar Jan Mahsud, was killed and four others sustained serious injuries in a US drone attack in South Waziristan Agency (SWA) on Saturday.Tribal sources said the fighter planes pounded the hideouts and compounds of the militants in Arghanjo, Sam Killay, Jabba and Katakhel in Mamozai area of Orakzai Agency, killing 10 militants and injuring seven others. The sources said 11 compounds of the militants were destroyed in the operation. The injured militants were taken to a private clinic in the agency. Eyewitnesses said the fighter planes also hit a house of a militant commander, Ameenullah, in Sam Killay, killing two women and as many children.
The people of the troubled areas in the tribal region have started migration towards safer places.
| Commander Zar Jan had just came out of the building, along with his four bodyguards, when he came under attack by the US spy plane... "We don't know whether or not someone had attached a chip to his clothes." |
Commander Zar Jan had just came out of the building, along with his four bodyguards, when he came under attack by the US spy plane. His colleagues recalled that Zar Jan had told them that he wanted to prepare for prayers and went out of the building. "We don't know whether or not someone had attached a chip to his clothes, but the moment he went out of the house the drone fired missiles, killing him on the spot," said a friend of Zar Jan while requesting anonymity. Four other militants escorting Zar Jan received serious injuries, he added. The injured militants, he maintained, were taken to a private health facility in the nearby Ladha town, where two of them were stated to be in critical condition.
He said few doctors are available in the Mehsuds-inhabited areas of South Waziristan nowadays after the government launched an operation against Baitullah Mehsud and his fighters.