17 soldiers killed in Waziristan attack

17 soldiers killed in Waziristan attack

* 15 militants killed in retaliatory fire
* 5 militants killed in Mir Ali

By Haji Mujtaba and Iqbal Khattak

MIRANSHAH/PESHAWAR: Militants continued their attacks on security forces in the country’s northwest on Wednesday, killing 17 soldiers and wounding up to 12 others in two strikes against military convoys, officials said, as the army said that paramilitary soldiers shot dead five militants in a separate incident.
A military convoy was attacked in the Ghazlami area, 40 kilometres west of Miranshah, when it was coming from Lwara Mandi.
“Seventeen soldiers were martyred and 12 others injured in the clash,” military spokesman Maj Gen Waheed Arshad told Daily Times. He denied that the militants had ambushed the convoy.
“They (the militants) first attacked the convoy with rockets and then opened fire with automatic weapons,” a security official, asking not to be named, told Daily Times. “In this type of attack, the targeted people have little time to respond and get higher casualties,” he added.
Gen Arshad said that 12 to 15 militants were killed in retaliatory fire. He said that it was not known yet which militant group was attacking the security forces.
A soldier and four civilians were injured in a remote-controlled bomb attack on another military convoy, while a 12-year-old boy received bullet injuries when the soldiers opened fire in self-defence.
Militants also fired five rockets on a military base in Miranshah late on Tuesday night, but there were no damages, army sources said.
Gen Arshad said that five militants were killed when paramilitary troops challenged them near Mir Ali. However, witnesses said the FC soldiers shot at a “mentally-retarded” man in Ptasi Adda near Mir Ali bazaar when he ignored their calls to stop.
The government will hold a meeting with a 45-member jirga that negotiated the peace deal with the militants last year.
“We have been invited for a meeting with NWFP Governor Ali Jan Orakzai on Thursday (today). We don’t know the agenda, but the meeting will obviously focus on the peace deal,” Malik Waris Khan from Khyber Agency, who is among 45 other elders from six tribal regions to attend the meeting, told Daily Times in Peshawar.
Separately a landmine exploded overnight outside the home of politician Ajmal Khan, who served as federal sports minister in the 1990s, in Miranshah. The blast destroyed his front gate but caused no casualties, a relative said.
Meanwhile late on Wednesday evening, security forces fired mortar shells on suspected militant positions on hilltops surrounding Miranshah.

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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.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company