Pakistan forces hit militants on Afghan border

By Haji Mujtaba

MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (Reuters) – Pakistani helicopter
gunships and ground forces attacked a militant hideout near the
Afghan border on Wednesday killing up to 30 people, according
to a senior official in the North Waziristan tribal region.

Sayed Zaheerul Islam, the top government administrator in
North Waziristan, said between 25 and 30 foreign fighters and
tribal militants had been killed and more wounded in the
assault on Danda Saidgai, a village about 15 km (10 miles)
north of Miranshah, the region’s main town.

“It was a camp of foreign miscreants,” Islam said. “Bodies
and wounded are being airlifted,” he added.

But a witness at Danda Saidgai said he saw helicopters
attack houses where women and children lived. Others said a
backlash against the army action was brewing in Miranshah, the
region’s main town.

There has been mounting anger among Pashtun tribes over the
conduct of the war on terrorism which has resulted in Pakistani
deaths and occasionally violations of Pakistani territory like
the U.S. airstrike on the Bajaur tribal agency that killed 18
people in early January.

The latest Pakistani military operation came hours before
U.S. President George W. Bush made a stop in Afghanistan at the
start of trip that will also take him to India and Pakistan.

Bush told a news conference in Kabul that he intended to
raise the issue of militants using Pakistan as a base when he
meets President Pervez Musharraf in Islamabad.

“I absolutely will bring up the cross-border infiltration
with President Musharraf,” said Bush, whose visit is otherwise
seen as a gesture of support for his Pakistani ally.

“These infiltrations are causing harm to friends and allies
and cause harm to U.S. troops.”

U.S. and Afghan forces along the border are regularly
harried by Taliban insurgents, Central Asian Islamist militants
and al Qaeda remnants, while Osama bin Laden is widely believed
to be hiding somewhere in Pakistan.

Pakistan often comes under pressure to take more forcible
action, although it has deployed 80,000 troops in border areas.

VILLAGE HOUSES HIT

The operation in North Waziristan was launched after the
army received intelligence from the Afghan side of the border
that a party of militants had returned to Pakistani territory
from the Afghan province of Khost, according to Islam.

He said helicopter gunships struck first and ground troops
then closed in on the hideout close to the border.

An ammunition dump at the base was also hit and explosions
could be heard in Miranshah.

A Reuters correspondent in Miranshah later heard firing
after hundreds of tribesmen, some armed with automatic weapons
and rockets, headed out toward Danda Saidgai, angered by talk
of casualties among villagers.

“We are hearing explosions and rockets and Kalashnikov
fire. It happens with gaps of four to five minutes,” he said.

Military spokesman Major-General Shaukat Sultan said the
assault had targeted a compound where foreign militants were
hiding. But he was unable to give casualty figures or say
whether there were any high value targets present.

“The security forces have struck and knocked out this
compound early this morning,” Sultan told Reuters Television in
the garrison city of Rawalpindi.

Nek Amal Khan, a tribal elder from the area, said he and
two others were driving to Danda Saidgai when a helicopter
strafed their van.

He said they jumped out and lay on the ground to play dead,
when they saw eight more helicopters fire on the house of a
local Muslim cleric, Mullah Noor Peo Khan, and other nearby
houses.

“Then all the troops disembarked from the helicopters and
surrounded the village,” the tribal elder said, after bringing
his two wounded companions to a hospital in Miranshah.