Five security personnel were injured when a suicide bomber in an explosives-laden vehicle was intercepted at the gate of Wana Scouts Camp, in South Waziristan Agency.
The vehicle was destroyed by the security forces on guard.
“The attacker tried to target the Zalia Gate of the scouts camp,” an official told The Express Tribune. “The vehicle, which was intercepted by the security men on guard, was fired upon immediately after it was intercepted,” he added.
The official confirmed that five security men sustained “minor injuries”, adding that the cause of the injuries were not from the splinters of the vehicle or the explosives but because their bunkers had been affected because of the intensity of the explosion.
Sources told The Express Tribune that rockets were initially fired to divert the attention of the security forces before the pick-up tried to target the military installation in the main city of South Waziristan Agency. “The intensity of the explosion was so loud that it could be heard at a distance of almost three kilometres,” a resident of the area said.
Wana, which is part of the Wazir tribe’s territory, is the subject of a “peace treaty” between the government and the tribe. The area has witnessed much violence since the bodies of two security personnel were discovered in the main market of the town last month.
A jirga of the Ahmadzai Wazir tribe has been given a deadline to hand over the culprits along with kidnapped security personnel within 15 days, which expires today (Sunday).
Published in The Express Tribune, April 15th, 2012.
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It is the military and agencies which are handling the situation in FATA. This explosive laden vehicle could not have come from suburbs and out side of small town of WANA, then how come this vehicle was prepared in side town. Moreover Agencies had no clue that it was being prepared under their noses and who was doing it. The soldiers lives are precious, the perpetrators must be taught a lesson so ruthless that they should not dare to do it again. The lead should be followed to the planners and their backers, i think enough of diplomacy has been given the chance. Now the nation is fed up from receiving the dead bodies form FATA, the manic has reached to settle areas like Bannu in which the 300 attackers came to visit Bannu and no Intelligence Agency knew.