Yesterday:
"Scores Killed in Pakistani Tribal Areas" by AGENCE FRANCE-PRESS
MIRAM SHAH, Pakistan, Oct. 7 (Agence France-Presse) — At least 58 people, including 16 soldiers, were killed Sunday in two battles between militants and troops in Pakistan’s restive tribal areas, the military and local residents said.
Security forces attacked militant bases and hide-outs in the North Waziristan region bordering Afghanistan, said a military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad. He said that at least 20 militants and 6 soldiers were killed, and that 6 soldiers were wounded, according to a military statement.
Local residents said four civilians also died, including three women, although the military could not confirm that report.
The operation against the militants was in retaliation for overnight attacks Friday on two military convoys in the region that killed 2 soldiers and wounded 30, General Arshad said.
In a second battle, militants attacked a convoy in another section of the same region, with the resulting clashes killing 10 soldiers and 18 militants, General Arshad said."
Tomorrow:
"Heavy Fighting Reported in Pakistan" by CARLOTTA GALL
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Oct. 9 — In some of the heaviest fighting seen in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, Pakistani fighter jets bombed villages for the third day today as the authorities battled pro-Taliban militants.
Soldiers, civilians and militants have all suffered casualties in the fighting in the region of North Waziristan, but the reported figures have so far been impossible to verify.
Pakistan’s chief military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad, said that at least 45 Pakistani soldiers have been killed since the first ambush on Saturday, and a further 20 wounded. Another 50 soldiers, who went missing on Monday, were able to re-establish contact today, he said.
The state of the bodies of 31 soldiers that had been retrieved by local elders — some of the bodies were decapitated, some burned — had led the military to resort to aerial bombardment of the militants’ holdouts, according to a military official who asked not to be named.
Dozens of civilians have been killed and wounded in the bombing, in particular at a village, Hasu Khel, which is a known hub for foreign fighters. As villagers fled the area, some reached hospitals in the region where they told of bombing in at least six villages and of as many as 55 civilians killed, including women and children.
The deteriorating security situation in Pakistan’s tribal areas, where Al Qaeda and the Taliban’s influence are spreading, is posing a growing challenge for Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who has been focusing his attention on re-election and now awaits Supreme Court ruling on whether he was eligible for the vote he won on Saturday. Pakistan has been raked with surging violence as the military battles militants sympathetic to the Taliban and Al Qaeda, with a rising number of deadly attacks on military targets. Peace accords negotiated by the government with the militants and local tribes in 2005 and 2006 have all but broken down.
Most of the latest fighting is taking place in villages around the town of Mirali, in North Waziristan, an area known for a strong presence of foreign fighters. Sher Khan, a councilman from North Waziristan who lives near Mirali, said he lost 12 members of his family when several bombs fell on his house. Eighteen bodies were reported by villagers to have been pulled from the rubble in Hasu Khel.
General Arshad said that at least 150 militants had been killed in the battles, which first erupted Saturday when an army truck was ambushed. After that initial attack, about 300 militants went on to ambush an army convoy that was traveling to the scene, killing 22 troops and wounding 11, The Associated Press reported.
The bodies of dozens of soldiers, many with their throats slit, have been recovered from deserted areas of the region, fleeing residents said, according to the A.P."
