By IBRAHIM BARZAK, Associated Press Writer
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israeli attack helicopters fired missiles at an apartment building and a car in Gaza City on Tuesday, and witnesses said at least three people were killed. Hospital officials said eight were wounded, three critically.
The airstrike came just hours after Israel's Security Cabinet decided to step up attacks against Hamas militants in Gaza, a security official said.
The decision was in response to a double suicide bombing Sunday in the seaport of Ashdod, killing 10 Israelis. It was the first time in more than three years of fighting that Palestinian bombers managed to get out of Gaza to carry out an attack.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the Gaza strikes. Ambulances and Palestinian security forces raced to the scene.
One of the wounded said four missiles hit the apartment building.
Smoke was seen rising from the northern Nasser neighborhood near a refugee camp. Israeli fighter planes flew over Gaza City just after the attack.
Channel Two TV said the strike was part of the stepped-up campaign that would include daily attacks against militants from Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad, both responsible for many suicide bombing attacks.
By AHSANULLAH WAZIR, Associated Press Writer
WANA, Pakistan - Pakistani troops killed 24 suspects in a fierce crackdown Tuesday on al-Qaida and Taliban fugitives in the rugged tribal regions bordering Afghanistan, the army spokesman said. At least eight Pakistani soldiers were killed and 15 wounded in the operation.
The operation unfolded near Wana, in Pakistan's South Waziristan region, just a few miles from the Afghan border, said army spokesman Gen. Shaukat Sultan. The attacks were launched a day after the country's military president promised to rid the rugged tribal belt of an estimated 500 to 600 foreign terrorists he said were hiding there.
It also followed an announcement over the weekend that American forces were stepping up a sweep on the Afghan side of the border to capture al-Qaida and Taliban holdouts, including terror chief Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar.
"We believe that 24 suspected terrorists have been killed," Sultan said.
The majority of those killed appeared to be Pakistani tribesmen suspected of sheltering the terrorists, but Sultan said that several of the dead were also foreigners presumed to be members of al-Qaida. There was no indication that any senior al-Qaida or Taliban leader was among them.
Sultan said soldiers had only been able to retrieve a small number of the dead suspects because of continued tension in the region, though the fighting had ended by Tuesday evening. The bodies of all eight dead soldiers had been retrieved and sent to army headquarters at Wana.
About 700 paramilitary forces began the operation early Tuesday in Kaloosha, a village about six miles west of Wana, the main town in South Waziristan.
A Kaloosha resident, Qasim Khan, said paramilitary troops exchanged fire with people inside a fortress-like house. It was unclear who was inside, but it was believed to belong to one of seven tribesmen from the Yargul Khel clan accused of harboring al-Qaida and Taliban suspects. The seven had refused to surrender to authorities.
"We are not allowed to go out of our homes," Khan told an Associated Press reporter by telephone from the besieged village.
It was unclear who was inside, but it was believed to belong to one of seven tribesmen from the Yargul Khel clan accused of harboring al-Qaida and Taliban suspects.
The operation was the latest in a series of military sweeps in Pakistan's semiautonomous tribal regions. President Gen. Pervez Musharraf vowed on Monday to rid the areas of suspected terrorists, and acknowledged for the first time that 500-600 foreigners were sheltering in the region. He appealed to tribal elders for their cooperation in the counterterrorism drive.
His comments came ahead of a scheduled two-day visit to Pakistan and Afghanistan starting Wednesday by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, and after police on Monday defused a large car bomb outside the U.S. Consulate in the southern city of Karachi minutes before it was timed to detonate.
U.S. forces in Afghanistan over the weekend announced the start of Operation Mountain Storm, a large-scale sweep to hunt down al-Qaida and Taliban fugitives believed to be hiding in the border region.
Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, a spokesman for the U.S. military in Afghanistan, said Tuesday that U.S. forces were involved in ongoing checkpoint and house searches and patrols in Paktika, the Afghan province bordering South Waziristan. He said American commanders "continue to coordinate and cooperate" with the Pakistanis, but would not say if there were any operations linked to the Wana crackdown.
Paktika Deputy Gov. Sadokhan Ambarkhil told AP he had no information about any military activity on the Afghan side of the border, but that drivers coming from the border region had told of U.S. forces carrying out an operation last Friday.
He had no details or firsthand information.
"We have no administration in those areas," he said.
Pakistan is a key ally in the U.S.-led war on terrorism, but has faced criticism because rebels of al-Qaida and Afghanistan's former ruling Taliban regime are believed to still be launching attacks in Afghanistan from Pakistani soil.
Mehmood Shah, a government administrator for the tribal areas based in the northwestern city of Peshawar, said Tuesday's operation involved about 700 paramilitary soldiers.
The paramilitary forces blocked a road leading to Kaloosha from Wana and vehicles heading toward the village were turned back. An AP reporter could hear mortar fire.
A cleric issued an appeal by loudspeaker from Wana's main mosque for negotiations to end the fighting.
"People should go to Kaloosha to mediate a cease-fire so that ordinary people are saved from bloodshed," Bazid Khan said at the Pir Sultan mosque.
In the past two years, Pakistan has deployed 70,000 troops in the tribal areas for the first time since independence, and has staged five military operations.
Last month, Pakistan army troops using helicopter gunships and artillery raided several villages near Wana, capturing 25 people, none of whom was reported to be a top al-Qaida or Taliban figure.