Suspected US strike kills 20 in Pakistan
A suspected US missile strike killed up to 20 people in northwestern Pakistan on Monday, officials said, the latest salvo in an intensifying assault on militant hide-outs near the Afghan border.
The reported strike occurred in the South Waziristan region, part of Pakistan's wild border zone that is considered a possible hiding place for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda No 2 Ayman al-Zawahri.
Officials said the strike in the lawless South Waziristan area on Sunday night killed Haji Omar Khan, a lieutenant of veteran Afghan Taliban chieftain and former anti-Soviet fighter Jalaluddin Haqqani.
Khan was active in attacks on US-led and Nato troops across the border in Afghanistan, local residents and security officials said.
He was a cousin of late Taliban commander Nek Mohammed, who was killed in 2004 in one of the first apparent US missile strikes in the region.
"Omar was sending fighters into Afghanistan and commanded them in several outings. He did not have any political affiliations and was linked to Haqqani," a security official said on condition of anonymity.
In other violence in Pakistan's frontier zone, a car bomb killed two people in Quetta and a suicide attacker demolished a checkpoint, injuring eight police and troops.
The blast at a busy road in the government offices area in Quetta, the capital of gas-rich Baluchistan province, also destroyed several rickshaws, cars and a pick-up truck.
"The bomb was planted in a car which went off with a big bang during rush hour. Initial reports say two people were killed, including a policeman," local police chief Rehmatullah Niazi told AFP.
Tribesmen assailed Taliban militants who beheaded a local militiaman in public and tried to abduct their chief, as clashes across northwest Pakistan left 41 people dead yesterday, officials said.
The government has hailed the emergence of anti-Taliban tribal militias as evidence that it can root out militants waging an insurgency in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The militias, known as Lashkars, have been compared to the so-called awakening councils that have helped US forces turn the tables against al-Qaeda in Iraq.
"Our tribal brothers, those who are patriots, have broken with them (the militants), and Lashkars are fighting against those involved in terrorism," Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said today.
However, there are doubts that the ramshackle militias can face down heavily armed insurgents who have seized swaths of Pakistan's border belt, forged ties with al-Qaeda, and targeted pro-government elders with suicide bombings and kidnappings.
Officials have denied reports they are arming the militias, though observers suspect that they at least receive government funding.
Missile strikes into Pakistan's border region have escalated sharply amid complaints from American commanders that Pakistani forces are not putting enough pressure on militant strongholds on their territory.
US military and CIA drones that patrol the frontier region are believed to have carried out at least 15 strikes since August. The United States rarely confirms or denies involvement.
Two intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they are not authorised to speak to media on the record, said the targeted house in Mandata Raghzai village belonged to a lieutenant of local Taliban chief Maulvi Nazir.
The officials, citing reports from agents and informers in the area, said militants cordoned off the scene. The identities of the 20 bodies pulled from the rubble were not immediately known, they said.
The missile strikes have killed at least two senior al-Qaeda operatives in Pakistan this year and ramped up the threat to groups suspected of plotting attacks on Western troops in Afghanistan and terror strikes in the West.
However, it has also put strain on the country's seven-year alliance with the US in its war on terror, especially since stalwart US ally Pervez Musharraf stepped down as Pakistan's army chief and president.
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