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India-Pakistan
Pakistanis defend Miranshah violence
2006-03-10
A senior Pakistani official Thursday said retaliatory fire that killed dozens of militants in the border region of Miranshah on March 3 had become inevitable after the talks with the pro-Taliban tribesmen stalled and some of them opened fire at the forces' headquarters.

'We tried our best to convince the angry tribesmen that the military operation in another village was aimed at Taliban and al-Qaeda miscreants, but they refused to listen to us,' Zaheerul Islam, the administrative officer of the North Waziristan agency told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa in an exclusive interview.

Islam, who himself survived an ambush on Tuesday in the turbulent border zone, gave a graphic description of the events that culminated in the deaths of at least 60 people within three minutes.

'The reticent tribesmen refused to believe our version of the military operation in the Saidgai village and while we were still discussing, somebody from amongst them began firing into the defenses of the Frontier Constabulary (FC) - the paramilitary force responsible for the security in the region.

'Within three minutes, we put down 60 to 70 people, and the rest escaped,' Islam said of the bloody event, in the first-ever eyewitness account of the events.

Islam claimed the authorities had mounted a blitz operation on a hideout in the Saidgai village after verifying report that the 'miscreants' had been putting up there and also planning subversion in Afghanistan.

Pakistan authorities use the term miscreants for the militants.

'They were a mixed bag - Afghans, Uzbeks, Chechens, Chinese Uigurs and local supporters,' the official said. He added that insufficient surveillance on the Afghan side of the border enabled them to move back and forth across the Duran Line - the official border separating Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Islam said militants were taking advantage of an ambiguous policy of the Islamic Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) part, which used to support Afghanistan's hard line Taliban regime.

Militants 'are hiding there as it is not clear whether JUI opposes them or supports,' he said.

Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao earlier this week claimed that Pakistan had 'credible information' of involvement of foreigners from Afghanistan in the recent violence in the tribal region.

Following skirmishes between the security forces and pro al-Qaeda militants, the authorities barred outsiders from entry into the area, and also clamped curfew in Miranshah, the administrative headquarter of North Waziristan, to check the spiral of violence.
Posted by:Dan Darling

#2  Urban Pakistanis view tribal-rurals as barely human. And the fact that they worship Arabs as master-race heros, doesn't sit well in Karachi and Islamabad.
Posted by: Listen To Dogs   2006-03-10 00:43  

#1  Perhaps if the locals did'tn make the "foreigners" so welcome they wouldn't have these problems.
Posted by: SPoD   2006-03-10 00:16  

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