Pakistanis Say 17 Killed in Airstrike
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Today: January 13, 2006 at 13:32:14 PST
DAMADOLA, Pakistan (AP) -
Weeping villagers dug through the rubble of homes destroyed Friday in a pre-dawn airstrike that doctors said killed at least 17 people in a remote Pakistani tribal area - the second deadly strike in a week near the Afghan border.
Sahibzada Haroon ur Rashid, a local lawmaker from a hard-line Islamic party, claimed it was a U.S. airstrike - opposite a region of Afghanistan where Islamic militants are active. But the U.S. military denied knowledge of the incident.
Residents of Damadola, a hillside hamlet about four miles inside northwestern Pakistan, said children and women were among the dead.
They recounted hearing aircraft flying overhead before bombs or missiles crashed through the Pashtun tribal village - blasts that were felt miles away.
Pakistan's army said only that it had received reports about "explosions" in the region and that an unknown number of people had died.
An Associated Press reporter who traveled to Damadola, about 125 miles southeast of Islamabad, counted at least 15 fresh graves of victims, buried quickly according to Islamic custom. Villagers said more than 30 people had died and others were wounded.
Mohammed Karim, a doctor from a hospital in the main town of Bajur - the tribal region where Damadola is located - said 17 or 18 people were killed and two others were treated for their wounds.
Three houses, hundreds of yards apart, were destroyed, with wreckage scattered in craters some 10 feet deep. Five women were weeping nearby, cursing the attackers. Dozens of others gathered to express condolences.
"My entire family was killed, and I don't know whom should I blame for it," said Sami Ullah, a 17-year old student, as he shifted debris from his ruined home with a hoe. "I only seek justice from God."
He said 24 of his family members were killed - among them his parents, four brothers, three sisters-in-law, three sisters and five nephews. He said his father, Bakht Pur, had been a laborer.
Digging through the cement rubble of his home, Shah Zaman, who lost two sons and a daughter, recounted hearing planes at about 2:40 a.m.
"I ran out and saw planes were dropping bombs," said Zaman, 40. "I saw my home being hit."
"I don't know who carried out this attack and why. We were needlessly attacked. We are law-abiding people. I think we were targeted wrongly," he said.
Militant groups like al-Qaida, the Taliban and the militia of renegade Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar are believed to be active in the border area, but Bajur itself is rarely troubled by violence.
In Kabul, U.S. military spokesman Lt. Mike Cody said he had no reports on Friday's attack.
The spokesman for Pakistan's army - which has tens of thousands of forces deployed along the Afghan border to hunt al-Qaida and Taliban militants - said it had reports of casualties in explosions in Bajur but no details. "This matter is still being investigated," said spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan.
In Afghanistan's eastern province of Kunar, which borders Bajur, deputy provincial governor Noor Mohammed denied that a rocket attack had been launched from inside Afghanistan.
"I have been in touch with all the security forces in Kunar and no one has heard about this," he said.
The attack was the latest in a series of apparent air or missile strikes on the Pakistan side of the border with Afghanistan, unexplained by authorities but widely suspected to have targeted terror suspects or Islamic militants.
Last Saturday, an attack on a cleric's home in North Waziristan, 125 miles southwest of Bajur, killed eight people. Local tribesmen claimed U.S. helicopters launched the attack and took away five tribesmen. Pakistan's government protested to the U.S. military in Afghanistan. The U.S. military denied it had bombed the area.
Last month, a senior al-Qaida suspect from Egypt, Hamza Rabia, was killed in North Waziristan. Pakistan denied residents' claims that he died in a U.S. missile strike.
Pakistan maintains a sensitive alliance with the United States in its war on terror, which is opposed by many in this Islamic nation of 150 million people. Pakistan says it does not allow Afghan or the 20,000 U.S. forces in Afghanistan to operate on its soil.
"Our people say Americans did it," Rashid said. "If it is true, then Pakistan should lodge a strong protest with the U.S. government for killing innocent people."
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So I see AP's Pakistani source goes CBS one better and puts the weeping villagers angle first in its story.
You have long sheltered the men responsible for thousands of deaths only a few of whom were military people. You celebrated when the Towers were bombed in NYC and have pledged death to anyone not sharing your vile religion. When you lie down with murders, you don't always get back up.