US missiles blamed for 18 deaths on Pakistan border

US missiles blamed for 18 deaths on Pakistan border

(Adds provincial minister, paragraphs 12-15) By Zeeshan Haider ISLAMABAD, Jan 13 (Reuters) - A Pakistani security official and residents of a border region said U.S. aircraft from Afghanistan killed 18 people, including women and children, when they fired missiles at pro-Taliban Islamists early on Friday. Pakistani military spokesman Major-General Shaukat Sultan said up to 14 people had been killed in several blasts in the Bajaur tribal region but said he did not know the cause. A U.S. military spokesman in Afghanistan, Lieutenant-Colonel Jerry O'Hara, said there were no reports of U.S. forces operating in the area. The blasts came days after Pakistan, a key ally in the U.S.-led war on terrorism, lodged a strong protest with U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan, saying cross-border firing in the nearby Waziristan area last weekend killed eight people. Residents of Bajaur, opposite Afghanistan's insurgent-troubled Kunar province, said the explosions were caused by firing from unidentified aircraft on the village of Damadola at about 3 a.m. (2200 GMT Thursday). The missiles destroyed houses of three tribesmen. Five women and five children were among 18 dead, while five people were hurt, journalist Anwar Ullah said after visiting the scene. Those killed included 13 members of the family of one tribesman, Bakhpoor Khan, he said. "It appears the Americans suspected some foreigners or wanted people were hiding in these houses. But there have never been foreigners in this area before." "UNPROVOKED" A Pakistani intelligence official said four U.S. aircraft had intruded into Pakistani airspace and fired four missiles. Another intelligence official said Damadola has been a stronghold of Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (Movement for the Implementation of Mohammad's Sharia Law), a pro-Taliban group banned by Pakistan in January, 2002. He said members of the group might have been involved in attacks on U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan and the missile strikes might have been launched in retaliation. The deputy chief minister for the North West Frontier Province, adjoining Bajaur, denounced the "unprovoked" attack and demanded the government take up the issue with the United States. "It was American aircraft -- who could dare do that except them?" said Mohammad Siraj ul-Haq, from the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, an opposition Islamist alliance that rules NWFP and opposes the U.S. presence in Afghanistan. "It is unbearable ... I have asked my people to stay peaceful," he said from Dir, about 22 km (15 miles) from Damadola, itself 200 km (125 miles) northwest of Islamabad. "It shows a failure of foreign policy." Nearby Waziristan has been the scene of clashes between security forces and al Qaeda militants for more than two years, but there have been no previous reports of fighting in Bajaur. U.S. forces have been in Afghanistan since 2001 pursuing the Taliban and their al Qaeda allies, including Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks on U.S. cities. U.S. officials have long said they believe bin Laden has been hiding on the rugged Afghan-Pakistan border. In separate violence, suspected separatists in the troubled southwestern province of Baluchistan fired up to 10 rockets into an army camp east of the provincial capital, Quetta, late on Thursday, killing three soldiers, a provincial official said.(Additional reporting by Sayed Salahuddin in KABUL)

Update: NYT report

Pakistan Says U.S. Planes Crossed Border and Killed 18

By MOHAMMAD KHAN

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Jan. 13 - American planes crossed from Afghanistan into Pakistan's Bajaur tribal region and fired on residential compounds in a Pakistani village early this morning, killing 18 people and wounding 6 others, Pakistani officials and eyewitnesses said.

Villagers and security officials said that four American aircraft entered the Pakistani tribal region that borders Afghanistan's eastern Kunar province at about 3.15 a.m. Pakistan Time. The planes targeted residential buildings in the Berkandi area of Damadola, about 25 miles from the border inside Pakistan, they said.

The mountainous province of Kunar is frequently the site of clashes between United States-led coalition forces and armed militants who are believed to use Pakistan as a sanctuary. In June last year, 19 American servicemen were killed in Kunar in the heaviest single combat loss in the four years of fighting in Afghanistan.

American military officials have said that their forces in Afghanistan do not have the right to cross the border into Pakistan, even in pursuit of militants. The issue is particularly sensitive for Pakistan, since the inhabitants of the border areas are strongly anti-American and pro-Taliban.

Witnesses from the village said that 14 of the dead belonged to one family. Sahibzada Haroon Rashid, a tribal parliamentarian from the region, whose village, Gung, is next to Damadola, claimed to have seen a drone surveying the area some hours before the attack.

"The drone has been flying over the area for the last three, four days and I had a feeling that something nasty was going to happen," Mr. Rashid said in a telephone interview from Bajaur.

"I was awakened from deep slumber by the noise of the drone and then, together with thousands others who, too, had been woken up by the plane's noise, saw jets targeting the area," Mr. Rashid said. "One plane circled the area and dropped illuminating flares and the other planes fired missiles. There were loud explosions." He said that the planes had targeted three houses, all belonging to jewelry dealers in a nearby town.

"The houses have been razed to the ground. There is nothing left," Mr. Rashid said after visiting the scene. "Pieces of the missiles are scattered all around. The impact of the explosions have been huge, everything has been blackened in a 100 meter radius." United States military spokesmen in Afghanistan and at the Pentagon said they had no reports of American aircraft active in the area at the time of the reported explosions.

Asked if a pilotless Predator Drone was operating in the area, Maj. Todd Vicion, a public affairs officer at the Pentagon, said he did not know. "Those are operational details that we don't track," he said. Predator Drones are operated by the Central Intelligence Agency, not the United States military.

Among the dead are 6 women and 6 children under 10 years of age, villagers said.

A military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, said he did not know the cause of the blasts. "People heard explosions and, as a result, there were a number of casualties. My information is that 11 to 14 people have been killed."

This is the second alleged United States attack in a Pakistani tribal region that has killed civilians in recent days. Eight people, including women and children, were reported killed when an American helicopter fired at the house of a local cleric in North Waziristan close to the Afghan border on Jan. 7.

Pakistan lodged a strong protest with coalition forces on Jan. 9, but said it was still investigating whether the two helicopters crossed the border or fired missiles from Afghan territory. Assadullah Wafa, the provincial governor of Kunar, which adjoins Pakistan's Bajaur region, said that there had been no activity in the border area involving Afghan military or police or American troops. He suggested the explosion was an internal Pakistani affair. But Mr. Wafa said Taliban and Al Qaeda militants were using Pakistan as a base for their operations.

"We don't have any problems with the people of Bajaur," the governor said, "but everyone knows that the Taliban and Al Qaeda are staying in Pakistan."

Villagers in Damadola said some of the bodies were badly mutilated and could not be identified. They were all buried in a mass grave.

Officials and residents in Damadola said there were no reports of any foreign militants being killed or being present in the three houses at the time of the attack.

"There are no foreign militants here. It is a peaceful area," Mr Rashid said. "It is a big question mark: why were innocent men, women and children killed?"