Crackdown on terror: Waziristan air blitz kills 23 militants

Mastermind of Peshawar school attack dies in Jamrud shoot-out; seven foreign militants slain in drone strikes

PESHAWAR/ BANNU/ JAMRUD:

Some 23 militants were killed in a series of air raids carried out in North Waziristan Agency on Friday, the military said as a senior official confirmed the separate killing of the alleged mastermind of the Peshawar school attack in a shoot-out in Khyber Agency’s Jamrud town.

Several important militant compounds, including a large underground ammunition dump and tunnel complex, were destroyed in the air attacks, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said in a communique.

“In very effective and precise aerial strikes north of Datta Khel in North Waziristan this [Friday] evening, 23 terrorists have been killed and some important militant compounds have been destroyed,” it  said. A huge underground ammunition dump and tunnel complex was destroyed in the air blitz as well.

The military says it has killed more than 1,700 militants so far in its heavy offensive in North Waziristan and Khyber Agency. The military has ramped up its offensive against militants in the wake of the December 16 attack in Peshawar.

At least seven foreign militants were killed and two were injured in two simultaneous drone attacks on militant hideouts in different areas of the Shawal mountainous region of North Waziristan on Friday morning, intelligence officials and local sources said.

Peshawar attack’s mastermind slain

Security forces have killed a notorious militant commander who allegedly facilitated last week’s grisly attack on the Army Public School (APS) in Peshawar, the political agent (PA) of Khyber Agency said Friday, as two simultaneous drone strikes left seven suspected terrorists dead in North Waziristan.



“Commander Saddam, a dreaded terrorist, was killed in an exchange of fire with security forces in the Ghundai area of Jamrud on Thursday night,” Khyber Agency PA Shahab Ali Shah told reporters at a news conference. “Six of his accomplices, who were injured in the action, have been arrested,” he said. According to Shah, Saddam and his accomplices were trying to make a break for it after killing a leading tribal elder, Malik Badshah Khan, when they were intercepted by security officials. A brief encounter left Saddam dead and his accomplices injured, he said. “Authorities are currently interrogating the injured terrorists,” he added.

Shah said Saddam was believed to have facilitated the terrorists who massacred over 140 people, most of them children, at the APS in Peshawar on December 16, although the extent or capacity of his alleged involvement was not yet known.

He described Saddam as an important commander of the Tariq Geedar group of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), and said he had masterminded several bomb attacks. He added that Saddam and his accomplices had been involved in several recent attacks on security forces that had resulted in heavy casualties. These include the attack on a polio vaccination team in Jamrud in March which left 11 security personnel dead and the killings of eight soldiers of the Swat Scouts and three Khasadar troops in July and February respectively.

Saddam and his accomplices were also involved in several kidnapping for ransom and extortion incidents, the Khyber Agency PA said. The Tariq Geedar group, which they belonged to, is also responsible for several attacks on schools and killings of tribal elders across Khyber Agency, he added.

7 killed in twin drone strikes

At least seven militants, all of them foreigners, were killed and two were injured in two simultaneous drone attacks on militant hideouts in different areas of the Shawal mountainous region of North Waziristan on Friday morning, intelligence officials and local sources said.

Two US drones fired two missiles each at suspected militant compounds in the Kund Sar and Mangotri villages of Shawal, tribal sources told The Express Tribune. Both attacks took place within minutes of each other, they said.

Four suspected militants were killed in the drone strike at the compound in Kund Sar, according to them. Two of them were Turkish nationals and two were Uzbeks, they said. The compound itself belonged to the Punjabi Taliban headed by Asmatullah Muawiya, the sources added.

Three Uzbek militants were killed in the drone attack in Mangotri village, sources said.

Friday’s drone strikes push the number of such attacks in 2014 to 21, according to official data. As many as 18 of these took place in North Waziristan, with the other three taking place in South Waziristan. Pakistan has consistently denounced drone strikes in its tribal areas.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 27^th, 2014.