July 18, 2007
16 Pakistani Soldiers Killed in Attack
By ISMAIL KHAN
PESHAWAR, July 18 — Seventeen soldiers were killed and 12 wounded in an ambush by militants in the restive North Waziristan tribal region on Wednesday.
“It was a classical guerrilla tactic”, a senior government official said. “The militants occupied heights, first triggered a roadside bomb to halt the military convoy and then opened fire on them”, the official said, requesting he not be named, because he was not authorized to speak on the subject.
A military spokesman in Islamabad, Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad confirmed the incident but said that a number of militants were also killed by the soldiers’ return fire.
“The militants took away the bodies of their comrades,” General Arshad said by telephone.
The attack took place in the Ghazlamai area some 40 kilometers west of here at about 10:30 in the morning as the convoy was heading from Lawara Mandi on the border with Afghanistan to Miramshah.
The wounded and the bodies of those killed were taken by helicopter to hospitals in Bannu and Peshawar.
Militants have intensified attacks and suicide bombings against the security forces in the last week. With the latest fatalities, the death toll suffered by security forces since the beginning of this month has now reached 50.
As attacks on security forces mount in the troubled region, the government plans to convene a 45-member intertribal assembly in Peshawar on Thursday to launch a fresh bid to revive the now defunct Sept. 5 peace agreement in North Waziristan.
A government minister for the federally administered tribal areas, Javed Iqbal, said that he was confident the negotiations would reopen with tribesmen to revive the 10-month old peace agreement.
“It is in the collective interest of us all,” Mr. Iqbal said. “It is in their interest, and it is in our interest. Tribesmen are very pragmatic people and I am confident they will return to negotiations.”
The militants said they would not revive the peace agreement unless the government agreed to withdraw troops from check points, stop military operations and pay compensation to the victims who had suffered losses in the military operations in the past.
Also on Wednesday morning, three civilians and a soldier were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded at Garam Chashma Bridge on Bannu-Miramshah road. Eyewitnesses said that bomb went off when a convoy was passing over the bridge.
However, the bomb hit a private car and a military truck in the rear of the convoy, wounding three civilians and a soldier. A teenaged boy bathing in a nearby spring sustained bullet injuries when soldiers started firing. The wounded boy was taken to a hospital in Miramshah.
Ismail Khan contributed reporting from Peshawar and Graham Bowley contributed reporting from New York.
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The FATAs are no longer effectively a part of Pakistan, have never been governable by the Paki official/central government.
dubya ought to follow up the macho of his cowboy sheriff posturing and go after AQ in the FATAs. Instead, he wimps out and says it's too hard, that the FATAs are more wild than the US Wild West.
Last edited by boutons_; 07-18-2007 at 02:31 PM.
Okay boutons I want to be sure I understand you. Youdubya ought to follow up the macho of his cowboy sheriff posturing and go after AQ in the FATAs. Instead, he wimps out and says i's too hard, that the FATAs are more wild than the US Wild West.
support Bush invading Pakistan. Because if you do and
he does chase the bad guys into Pakistan I don't want to
hear any caterwauling from you later.
Go into Pakistan and engage AQ directly? Nah, that would effectivly render AQ in Iraq just another insurgent group, and deprive the Bushies of their ability to oversimplify the Iraq cluster .
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