A citizens’ militia trying to drive out the Taliban killed seven militants in a two-hour firefight in Pakistan’s troubled northwest, police said yesterday.
Ejaz Ahmed, police chief in the Upper Dir region, said another militant was injured in the fighting late on Saturday night near the village of Patrak, about 7km east of Dir Khas, the region’s main town and district headquarters.
Several civilian militias, known as lashkars, have emerged in Upper Dir since a suicide bombing on a mosque two weeks ago that was blamed on the Taliban killed at least 33 people.
The militias carry out patrols and have been pursuing remnants of Taliban who had tried to expand their influence into the area.
Ahmed said scores of militants have been trapped and killed by the militias in several villages, with police cutting off escape routes.
The Taliban who were killed on Saturday had been trying to flee when they came across the militiamen and opened fire, he said.
“Due to heavy losses, militants have been attempting to escape the area under cover of dark, and last night’s incident was one such attempt,’” Ahmed said.
He said no civilians were killed in the fighting.
The report could not immediately be confirmed due to military restrictions on media access to the area.
In the most striking example of growing anti-Taliban sentiment, up to 1,600 tribesmen in Upper Dir cleared three villages of Taliban fighters two weeks ago, killing at least six militants.
There were no immediate reports on fresh fighting in the nearby South Waziristan tribal area, where shelling and bombing of suspected militant targets has been increased and ground troops have been moving into position in the past week since the government announced the military would go after Pakistan’s Taliban commander, Baitullah Mehsud.
A military statement Saturday said 37 extremists died when troops retaliated after the militants tried to block the main South Waziristan road near the town of Sarwaki.
They were the first militant casualties of the offensive in South Waziristan to be confirmed by the army.
South Waziristan is Mehsud’s tribal stronghold, a chunk of the remote and rugged mountainous region along Pakistan’s northwestern border with Afghanistan where heavily armed tribesmen hold sway and al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders are believed to be hiding.
Pakistan is shifting the focus in its fight against militancy from the northwestern Swat Valley, where troops have been pushing Taliban fighters back for almost two months, to a new and much tougher battleground in the Afghan border region.
Washington supports both operations and sees them as a measure of nuclear-armed Pakistan’s resolve to take on a growing insurgency after years of failed military campaigns and faltering peace deals.
The battle in the tribal region could also help the war in Afghanistan because the area has been used by militants to launch cross-border attacks on US and other troops.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the