Upsurge in violence: Three FC troops killed in Waziristan truck bombing

Militant commander extends deadline for tribesmen to evacuate the region.

MIRAMSHAH:

At least three paramilitary troops were killed and more than a dozen others, including women, were wounded in a truck bomb attack on a security check post in North Waziristan Agency Monday afternoon.

A militant drove a truck rigged with explosives into the Boya check post in Datta Khel tehsil of North Waziristan, a local security official told The Express Tribune. He said that the check post and an adjacent house were flattened in the blast.

Security officials confirmed that at least three Frontier Corps soldiers manning the check post were killed and 12 people, among them women, were wounded.

Local tribesman Zahir Shah Wazir said that minutes after driving past the check post he heard an ear-splitting explosion. “When I looked back I saw a huge fireball leaping upwards,” he added. “Soon after, a cloud of smoke and dust covered the whole area.”

Wazir said the loud bang was heard within a radius of several kilometres. “I, along with other residents rushed to the site to help the victims. The entire structure was torn down by the powerful blast and the victims were trapped underneath the rubble,” he added.



At least five women who were also wounded in a nearby house  were subsequently airlifted by the security forces to hospital, according to Wazir. A security official added that army helicopters airlifted all the injured to the Combined Military Hospital in Bannu.

Separately, two bullet-riddled bodies were found in a jungle on the outskirts of Miramshah, headquarters of North Waziristan. A political administration official identified the victims as tribesman Noor Qadar and Noor Qiyas, residents of the Qutab Khel area. He added that the tribesmen were killed by unidentified men and their bodies were dumped in the jungle.

Meanwhile, the chief of Shura Mujahideen North Waziristan, Hafiz Gul Bahadur, who has accused the government of reneging on a 2007 peace agreement and is preparing for war, had set the June 10 deadline for local tribesmen to evacuate the region.

However, on Monday, Haji Sher Muhammad, the successor of the legendry Faqir of Ipi, convinced Gul Bahadur during a Jirga to extend the deadline. Sher Muhammad told local journalists that Bahadur has agreed to extend the deadline until 20th of this month.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 10^th, 2014.