Suspected US missile kills 3 in northwest Pakistan

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Suspected US missile kills 3 in northwest Pakistan

By NAHAL TOOSI, Associated Press Writer Nahal Toosi, Associated Press Writer –

Wed Apr 8, 2:02 pm ET

ISLAMABAD – A suspected U.S. missile struck a car in a lawless northwest

Pakistani tribal region Wednesday, intelligence officials said, killing two

insurgents and a civilian a day after the country again told visiting U.S.

officials it opposes such attacks.

The strike was a less-than-subtle hint that the Obama administration won't give

up a Bush-era tactic that Washington says has killed a string of al-Qaida

operatives along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, even if it strains

already-shaky relations with Islamabad.

Elsewhere in Pakistan's northwest, residents tried to force out a group of

Taliban fighters who ventured into their community from a militant stronghold in

the neighboring Swat Valley, triggering a clash that left at least five

combatants dead. Signaling the militancy's reach, police in the south said they

detained five members of an al-Qaida-linked group who planned suicide attacks in

the mega-city of Karachi.

The missile strike occurred near Wana, the main town in South Waziristan tribal

region, two intelligence officials said. South Waziristan is the main base of

Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, but there was no indication he was the

target.

A drone had been flying over the area, and the missile landed after people in

the car fired at the aircraft, the officials said, citing informants and agents

in the field. The attack also damaged some shops in the village of Shin Warsak,

wounding at least five villagers and killing one, they said.

The slain militants were from Pakistan's eastern Punjab province, one official

said. Both said Taliban fighters took away the militants' bodies. The two

officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to

talk to media.

U.S. officials rarely discuss the missile campaign, which has escalated since

August. Several dozen such missile attacks, believed launched by unmanned,

CIA-operated drones, have been carried out in the northwest. Pakistan has

protested the strikes as a violation of its sovereignty and raising sympathy for

the Taliban, scotching rumors that the two countries have a secret deal allowing

the strikes.

Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said Pakistan wants a trusting

relationship with the U.S. during a Tuesday news conference with American envoy

Holbrooke and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of

Staff.

But on the subject of the missile strikes, Qureshi said, " There's a gap between

us and them. "

Despite the strikes and a range of Pakistani efforts to stop the insurgency —

from controversial peace efforts imposing Islamic law to army offensives — the

militants appear to be extending their reach far beyond Pakistan's tribal

regions. Sometimes they meet resistance.

A group of Pakistani Taliban fighters crossed late Monday from Swat into Buner,

a previously peaceful district on the Indus River just 60 miles (100 kilometers)

northwest of the capital, Islamabad.

After the militants ignored appeals from community leaders to go back, armed

tribesmen and police confronted them, sparking a battle that left three officers

and two tribesmen dead, local police officer Zakir Khan said. Khan said more

than a dozen Taliban also died but provided no evidence to back that assertion.

Behramand Khan, another police official in Buner, said the militants handed the

five bodies to the police and that negotiations were under way for them to

withdraw.

Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan denied the militants were trying to expand into

Buner, calling the incident a " misunderstanding " stemming from some Taliban

fighters' desire to visit a local cleric.

" They didn't know that the mullah was not there in his village, " said Muslim

Khan, who did not discuss any Taliban casualties. He said Taliban reinforcements

arrived after news of the clash spread.

Resident Iqbal Khan said tribal elders had asked villages to arrange militias to

defend against any encroaching Taliban. He said about 200 had shown up and that

many remained.

" The situation is very tense. We are very worried, " Khan said Wednesday, adding

that a tribal council would discuss the matter soon.

The provincial government in northwest Pakistan agreed in February to impose

Islamic law in Swat and surrounding areas to halt 18 months of terror and bloody

fighting between militants and security forces that killed hundreds of people.

But President Asif Ali Zardari has not signed an order introducing the new legal

system, fueling speculation that Washington is pressing him to hold back and

that a cease-fire between the militants and the army won't hold.

Police in the southern city of Karachi said the five suspects arrested Tuesday

were members of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a group historically blamed for vicious

attacks on minority Shiite Muslims but increasingly associated with al-Qaida and

the Taliban.

The suspects were arrested in the Sohrab Goth area, a major hub for Afghan

refugees and tribesmen from Pakistan's South Waziristan tribal region. Weapons,

explosives and chemicals also were recovered, city police chief Wasim Ahmad told

reporters.

He alleged the suspects planned to strike government offices and Shiite

gatherings in the city and that they had attacked a critical U.S. and NATO

military supply line that runs through Pakistan's northwest, but didn't

elaborate.

___

Associated Press writers Ashraf Khan in Karachi, Riaz Khan in Peshawar and

Ishtiaq Mahsud in Dera Ismail Khan contributed to this report.