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July 13, 2008 Sunday Rajab 9, 1429
By Abdul Sami Paracha
KOHAT, July 12: Seventeen Frontier Constabulary personnel were killed on Saturday after militants ambushed an FC convoy in Hangu district. Several soldiers were injured in the attack.
Officials said the convoy was ambushed by the Taliban while it was on its way to Doaba from Fort Zargari.
During the 40-minute-long encounter, one local militant ‘commander’, Razeem, was killed and two of his colleagues were injured.
No reinforcements were sent to help the convoy ward off the attack, which took place in an area where two security vehicles were attacked just a few hours before the deadly ambush.
Helicopter gunships pounded surrounding hills where militants were believed to be hiding.
Mullah Sanaullah, a militant ‘commander’, sent a message to the administration after the ambush that his forces would attack security officials if they came to collect the bodies lying in vehicles.
The administration sent a two-member delegation, comprising MNA Pir Haider Ali Shah and Hangu district nazim Khan Afzal, to go to a seminary in the Kahi village and constitute a jirga of clerics for talks with militants on retrieving the bodies and the injured. The jirga is expected to come back in case talks are successful and hand over the bodies early in the morning.
Noorzad, a local, told Dawn that the bodies, including that of the convoy’s commanding officer, were lying inside the vehicles. Three of the soldiers had been slaughtered by Taliban before they left the area, he claimed.
The Kahi seminary is supposed to be managed by Rafiuddin, an aide to Baitullah Mehsud’s deputy. Rafiuddin is currently in the custody of security forces. Clashes erupted after the administration refused to release him.
Jirga members also accused the government of rigidity regarding a request for the handing over of the three militants who were among seven people arrested by police during a flag march on Thursday. The jirga had suspended talks on Friday.
In the first incident, which occurred near the Zargari toll plaza, the militants attacked an FC convoy, but security personnel escaped unhurt. However, a boy was seriously injured in shooting by the militant.
Earlier, security forces arrested four suspects from a car after the driver ignored a warning to stop at a checkpost in the Doaba bazaar. The vehicle was impounded after a chase by security personnel.
Doaba, Thall, Zargari, Tora Warai, Chappri, Togh Sarai and Hangu towns remained tense for a third consecutive day.
Taliban launch deadly attack on a combat outpost in Afghanistan's Kunar province
By July 13, 2008 1:46 PM
The Taliban launched a complex attack against a newly established combat outpost in the Pech district in Afghanistan's eastern province of Kunar. Heavy fighting is currently underway, and US forces are said to have taken multiple casualties in the attack.
The Taliban launched the attack early this morning at approximately 4:30 AM according to a press release from the International Security Assistance Force. The Taliban initiated the battle "with small arms, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars using homes, shops and the mosque in the village of Wanat for cover."
Afghan and US forces based at the outpost have fought back and called in artillery and helicopter support and airstrikes.
Afghan, US, and Taliban casualties have not been released as the fighting is ongoing, but ISAF reported that "there have been casualties on both sides of the fight." The Associated Press reported that nine US soldiers have been killed. If true, the attack would mark one of the largest incidents of US casualties during a ground engagement in Afghanistan.
In separate incident in Uruzgan province in southern Afghanistan, a Taliban suicide bomber killed 24 Afghans and wounded more than 40 in a deadly suicide attack at a market. Security officials said Afghan police were the target, and several policemen were reported killed in the attack.
Today's attacks plays directly into al Qaeda and the Taliban's propaganda and military strategy. The Taliban have launched a series of assaults on US and Afghan bases and patrol and government centers throughout the eastern regions of Afghanistan that border Pakistan’s tribal areas. The extremists hope to destabilize the Afghan government and overrun an outpost or district center as a show of strength.
Al Qaeda spokesman and Afghan commander Abu Yahya al Libi released a seven-minute videotape earlier this week titled "A Message To One of the Sheiks." Al Libi said the attacks on Coalition bases and suicide attacks show the Taliban is gaining strength and is "determined to turn the upcoming winter to hell for the infidels." The Taliban in Afghanistan "are going through continuous triumphs ... and are in a better shape compared with what they had been before," he stated.