Attackers from Afghan side kill 14 security personnel in Pakistan

[ejazr]

http://tribune.com.pk/story/154250/cross-border-militants-swoop-on-security-post-in-lower-dir/

PESHAWAR:

The death toll from the attack on a border check post in Lower Dir has reached 14. Hospital sources confirmed that more dead bodies of security personnel were brought in late last night.

Cross-border militants swoop on security post in Lower Dir

Hundreds of militants have attacked a border check post in Kharkai village in Lower Dir along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, security officials said on Thursday.

They said that helicopter gunships were used to target the militants, who still had control of the village, but were completely cut off by the troops.

Doctors at a hospital in Timergara said that at least four corpses had been brought there, adding that they had treated six men injured in the fierce gunbattle.

Gul Zaman, an official of the Mayar police station, told The Express Tribune by phone that militants from Afghanistan had carried out a pre-dawn attack on a security check point manned by 34 security personnel.

"There were 10 policemen along with other paramilitary troops inside the post," Zaman said.

The security personnel tried to ward off the attackers and called in reinforcements, resulting in a heavy exchange of fire.

The area where the attack took place is about 15-20 kilometres from the border.

A military officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that stiff resistance was being encountered and nothing could be confirmed about the exact number of casualties. "The area's communication has been completely disrupted, but we have completely cordoned off the area," he said.

Another military official said: "Gunship helicopters have targeted militants in large numbers who took refuge in the village. However, we cannot speculate (on the number of casualties)"¦everything is uncertain?.

A curfew has been imposed in areas falling between Mayar and Maskini.

Local people said that they had seen "more than 500 militants" entering their area, adding that they had "ordered people in the village to remain inside their homes or face dire consequences".

Bodies of four security personnel, including two policemen, were brought to Timergara.

"We will have to wait till the area is cleared before we can confirm the number of casualties on the militants' side," said a security officer.

Areas of Dir Lower experienced turmoil over the past few weeks after most of the area was cleared by security forces in the wake of a military operation. An anti-militant leader and his son were killed in a suicide attack in Munda on April 4. The area is also the native village of Tehrik Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Muhammadi chief Sufi Muhammad.

 

[Rage]

Some "unconfirmed" reports suggest that up to 50 may be dead.


50 feared dead as Afghans storm across border

PESHAWAR: According to unconfirmed reports, scores of Frontier Corps (FC) and Dir Levies personnel and policemen were killed, injured and kidnapped in Lower Dir on Thursday in an early morning assault by an Afghan 'Lashkar' comprising several hundred armed men.

So far however, the death of only two personnel of the paramilitary FC could be confirmed. They were identified as Amjad and Rozi Mohammad. Injuries to seven others soldiers was also confirmed as they were brought to the District Headquarters Hospital, Timergarha in Lower Dir. Unconfirmed reports put the death toll of the initial attack and a later clash between Pakistani reinforcements and the Afghan attackers at 50, while 27 FC and police personnel are feared kidnapped and believed to have been taken across the border to Afghanistan by the retreating attackers.

Local sources said the attack by the unidentified gunmen on the police and FC posts at Miskini Darra in Kharki area near the Pak-Afghan border was launched at around 4 am Thursday. The attackers came from across the Durand Line border and entered Pakistani territory and blasted away at the lightly defended posts with heavy weapons before storming them and overpowering the FC personnel and policemen. The number of the attackers was stated to be in hundreds according to the most conservative accounts.

According to reports received in Peshawar, at the time of attack there were around 30 FC men at the border posts along with 10 policemen and four Dir Levies personnel. They were completely taken by surprise by the overwhelming numerical superiority and massive firepower of the attackers. Some of the Pakistani border personnel were kidnapped while one managed to escape and later provided authorities with details of the attack.

Initial reports said the attackers could be militants. Local people however blamed the Nato forces and the Afghan security personnel for the attack on the Pakistani border posts arguing that such a large scale amassing of troops and operation could not have escaped the scrutiny of the NATO forces and could not have been possible without their connivance.

The sources said that contingents of the FC and the police rushed to the scene shortly after the attack but the gunmen ambushed them too and further casualties took place. The sources said later the Pakistan army gunship helicopters pounded the mountainous area in the Kharki area and Pakistan Army soldiers were dispatched to the area to reinforce the personnel at the border. The situation was tense in the area as unconfirmed reports kept making the round that all the Pakistani soldiers and cops manning the border posts had been killed or kidnapped. Some reports put the death toll at around 50, though this couldn't be confirmed. The reports said 27 soldiers and cops had been kidnapped.

The attack took place in the wake of the assassination of a pro-Afghan government commander Malik Zareen, his son and ten supporters in a recent suicide bombing in the Asmar area of Kunar bordering Pakistan. Malik Zareen lived in Miskeeni Darra in the Lower Dir district and held dual nationality. His son was a nazim of union council Miskeeni Darra. It wasn't known if the Afghan attack on the Pakistani border posts on Thursday was in any way linked to the assassination of Malik Zareen for which President Hamid Karzai had blamed Afghanistan's "historical enemy," a reference to Pakistan. The Afghan Taliban had denied their involvement in the suicide bombing against Malik Zareen, but suspicion largely fell on them due to their ongoing campaign of assassinating Afghan government officials and pro-Karzai tribal elders.


http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=5455&Cat=13&dt=4/22/2011
http://paktribune.com/news/print.php?id=238561


In any case, because they were combatants, there is no expression of sympathy on my side. A dead Pakistani soldier is one less of a turkey shoot.

The Taliban, ironically, is our greatest ally against in this fight against this terror state!

 

[Blackwater]

pak army has no resources and capability and courage to go in nothern wazristan. They had heavy causality in the past attack on southern Waziristan and FATA. that's y they allowed ameerican to go for drones.

 

[ganesh177]

There is yet another attack from militants from afghani side and yet another drone attack as well.



19 troops killed in Dir attack

PESHAWAR (Agencies) – Nineteen members of paramilitary forces were killed in Taliban attacks on a checkpost near the Afghan border, security officials said Friday.
Officials told the BBC that Afghan militants had crossed the border and stormed the army post in the Lower Dir area. Local sources said the attack by the unidentified gunmen on a checkpost in the Kharki area of Lower Dir, an area bordering Afghanistan's insurgency-hit Nuristan province, was launched at around 4 am Thursday. The attackers came from across the Durand Line border and entered Pakistani territory and attacked the post with heavy weapons before storming it and overpowering the FC personnel and policemen.
Around 200 armed militants had surrounded the post, a security official said.
He said 14 of the security forces died in the ambush on Thursday, and a further two were killed in a subsequent attack on troops later sent to reinforce the position.
In the first attack, "fourteen people were killed including nine Frontier Corps soldiers and five police officials," the official said, adding that five or six other members of the security forces were wounded.
However, three injured soldiers were succumbed to their wounds later during treatment raising the death toll to 19.
The sources said that contingents of the FC and the police rushed to the scene shortly after the attack but the gunmen ambushed them too and further casualties took place. The sources said later the Pakistan army gunship helicopters pounded the mountainous area in the Kharki area and soldiers were dispatched to the area to reinforce the personnel at the border.
Local police official Saleem Marwat told AFP that dozens of militants had seized control of the post on Thursday afternoon for the second time, after troops had managed to recapture their outpost overnight.
According to the BBC, local people blamed the Nato forces and the Afghan security personnel for the attack on the Pakistani border post.
Meanwhile, people from different areas of Lower Dir have started moving to safer places due to repeated attacks of militants and security forces operations.

http://nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-...cs/23-Apr-2011/19-troops-killed-in-Dir-attack

US drone strike kills 25 in North Waziristan


PESHAWAR: Four missiles fired by two suspected US pilotless aircrafts hit a house in North Waziristan on the Afghan border on Friday, killing 25 militants, Pakistani intelligence officials said.
The drone strike happened in Mir Ali, a town about 35 kilometres east of the region's main town of Miranshah.
An intelligence official in the region, who requested not to be identified, told Reuters that the house was being used as a militant hideout.
"The militants have surrounded the area where the attack happened and are not allowing anybody to go there," he said, adding 25 bodies had been recovered from the rubble and three women were among those killed.
Another official said some foreign militants were among the dead, but that their numbers and nationalities could not confirmed.
The strike came two days after a visit to Islamabad by Admiral Mike Mullen, the top US military official, in which he expressed concern over continuing links between Pakistan's main intelligence agency, the ISI, and militants attacking US-led forces across the border in Afghanistan.
North Waziristan is a known sanctuary for al Qaeda and Taliban militants near the Afghan border.
The United States has been using drone attacks to target al Qaeda-linked militants over the past few years in Pakistan's lawless tribal areas, a source of concern for the Pakistan government, which says civilian casualties stoke public anger and bolster support for militancy.


http://www.dawn.com/2011/04/22/us-drone-strike-kills-five-in-north-waziristan.html