A suspected US missile strike yesterday destroyed an Afghan Taliban camp and killed 18 in northwest Pakistan, a day after local affiliates of the group announced a ceasefire, officials said.
At least one missile fired by a suspected drone struck the Taliban center in Bhagan, part of a remote mountain stronghold for the hardline movement which is waging a fierce insurgency across the border in Afghanistan.
“One missile fired by a suspected US drone destroyed the Taliban center,” a top Pakistani security official said.
“Eighteen people, including militants, died in this attack according to information from the local area,” said a second security official, who earlier put the death toll at 12.
It was the first suspected US drone attack in Kurram, one of seven semi-autonomous tribal areas in Pakistan on the border with Afghanistan, where the Taliban are fighting US-led, NATO and Western-backed Afghan forces.
One security official said most of the dead were Afghan Taliban fighters and that commanders had been staying at the hideout.
The center was used to store weapons and lodge militants resting from bouts of fighting in Afghanistan. Local Taliban followers sealed off the area yesterday.
The latest missile attack underscored vanished hopes in Pakistan that the administration of US President Barack Obama would review the policy and abandon what Islamabad has called a violation of its sovereignty.
On Saturday, at least 27 mainly al-Qaeda foreign operatives were killed in a suspected US missile strike that destroyed a major Taliban training camp of top commander Baitullah Mehsud near the Afghan border.
Dozens of similar strikes since August have sparked government criticism of the US, believed to be firing the missiles from CIA drones.
The lawless tribal areas in northwest Pakistan have been wracked by violence since hundreds of Taliban and al-Qaeda rebels sought refuge in the region after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan toppled the Taliban regime in late 2001.
Washington has refused to acknowledge conducting missile strikes in Pakistan, but last week Senator Dianne Feinstein said US drones used to strike suspected insurgents in the country take off and land from a base in Pakistan.
Pakistan rejects US and Afghan accusations that the government is not doing enough to crack down on militants, who wage attacks across the border.
Meanwhile, Pakistani hardliners who have been fighting to impose their brand of Islamic law in the northwest’s Swat valley could sign a peace deal with the government as early as Monday after announcing a 10-day ceasefire, officials said.
The government of troubled North West Frontier Province (NWFP) has been holding talks with a local militant leader, Soofi Mohammad, on making amendments to the enforcement of strict Islamic Shariah law in Swat.
“The talks were very positive and the people of Swat will hear good news soon,” provincial information minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain said.
Provincial chief minister Amir Haider Hoti yesterday convened a meeting of political and religious leaders and tribal elders in Peshawar, officials said, adding that a consensus may be reached during the talks.
Twenty-nine delegates from the so-called Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Shariah, led by Maulana Muhammad Alam, attended the meeting, Hussain said.
Mohammad, a pro-Taliban cleric whose son-in-law Maulana Fazlullah is waging a violent campaign to impose Shariah in the region, said talks on a draft agreement had been successful.
Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan said on Sunday that the militants would observe a 10-day ceasefire as a “goodwill gesture.”
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS