More detail on Tuesday's dronezap...Fourteen people, all of them militants, were killed and seven others injured in another attack by a CIA-operated spy plane at Kaniguram town in Ladha subdivision of South Waziristan Agency (SWA) on Tuesday.
Tribal sources told The News that the US drone fired three missiles at a house, which the militants had occupied from a local influential trader and turned it into their 'Markaz' or headquarters.
The fortress-like house was owned by Zangi Khan Burki. Like several other tribesmen, Zangi Khan and his family had left their house and shifted to Karachi after tribal and foreign militants took over the picturesque Kaniguram town.
A tribesman living in Kaniguram travelled to distant Razmak town in North Waziristan Agency to inform The News about the drone attack and casualties suffered by the militants. Requesting anonymity, the tribesman said dozens of armed militants immediately cordoned off the house and retrieved 14 bodies of their slain colleagues from the rubble of the destroyed building. He said most of the bodies were mutilated beyond recognition.
The tribesman said he had seen several foreign militants, including Arabs and Uzbeks, visiting the house frequently. He, however, did not know whether foreigners were present there during the missile attack.
He said another house owned by the agency councilor, Arif Zaman, located near the alleged headquarters of the Taliban, was also damaged in the attack.Sources close to the Baitullah Mehsud-led Taliban told The News that all those killed in the attack were local tribal militants.
They also claimed that the victims of the drone attack included women and children. However, the tribesman from Kaniguram did not agree to the Taliban claims. He said very few tribal families now remained after the launching of the military operation against Baitullah and his men on June 14 and taking over of the 'ghost' town by the Taliban militants.The tribesman said the remaining families had also left their homes for Tank and Dera Ismail Khan due to fears of drone attacks as, he added, the Taliban militants had occupied the houses of local people in the town while spy planes were now continuously flying over the area.
| It's working nicely, then. The Taliban are losing their popularity, which makes them ever so much easier to find and kill. |
The newly-appointed spokesman for the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Azam Tariq, called media persons and claimed that only six people, including women and children, had been killed in the attack by the US spy plane.It was the second attack after August 5 in which the drone fired two missiles at the house of Malik Ikramuddin, the father-in-law of Baitullah Mehsud.