Pak militants kill 22 pro-govt tribesmen

Pakistani Taliban militants killed 22 pro-government tribal elders who were kidnapped during battles for control of a strategic town near the Afghan border, an official said yesterday.
The incident happened near the town of Jandola, adjoining the South Waziristan tribal district, where rebels loyal to top Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud have been fighting tribesmen loyal to the government.
The clashes come despite ongoing peace talks between Pakistani authorities and Mehsud, who was blamed by the previous government and US officials for the December assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto.
"According to our information 22 bodies of peace committee members have been found in Kiriwam village," district administration official Barkatullah Marwat told AFP, adding that the men were abducted a day earlier.
"Some of the dead were shot and some had their throats slit," Marwat said.
A peace committee is a body of tribal elders and tribesmen who are helping the government in Islamabad to tackle Islamic militancy in the conservative regions near the Afghan frontier.
During clashes near Jandola earlier this week the militants had kidnapped 27 people belonging to the peace committee and local tribal elders, he said.
Clashes broke out in Jandola between followers of a pro-government tribal elder, named Commander Turkistani, and militants belonging to Mehsud's tribe after rockets were fired at the home of a peace committee member on Monday.
Tensions had been high between the groups for months.
The military however put the overall death toll from this week's violence at nine and said that the militants had withdrawn from Jandola after troops moved late Tuesday.
"There is absolutely nothing now in Jandola. A total of nine people have been killed in fighting between tribes," chief military spokesman major general Athar Abbas told AFP.
Residents said the situation was tense in Jandola and armed militants were still present in the town, although Pakistani troops were also in position in their fortresses.
All shops were closed down and roads were deserted, they said.
Army and paramilitary Frontier Corps troops were seen moving between Jandola and nearby areas, they said.
Pakistan's border regions have been the scene of fighting between troops and militants since the fall of the Taliban regime in neighbouring Afghanistan in 2001.
But there have also been several outbreaks of violence between the area's conservative Pashtun tribes.
In April 2007, President Pervez Musharraf said that Pakistani tribesmen backed by the army had killed about 300 foreign Al-Qaeda militants in South Waziristan.
Pakistani tribesmen were pitted against mainly Uzbek and Chechen insurgents in the fighting.