Operation in Khyber: Five militants killed in Bara firefight

Rocket slams into tribesman’s house, killing three including two minors

HANGU/ BARA:

At least five militants were killed and three injured in a clash with security forces in the Jhansi area of Bara, Khyber Agency, in the early hours of Sunday. Elsewhere in the troubled agency, a stray rocket slammed into a house, killing three civilians while a suspected militant was shot dead by security forces.

Nearly a dozen militants attacked a security check post with heavy weapons in the Jhansi area, triggering a firefight in which five of the attackers were killed and three injured, a security official said. After suffering the casualties, the rest of the militants fled the scene. One security official was also wounded who was subsequently shifted to a military hospital in Peshawar.



Separately, a man was shot and fatally injured near Bara Bazaar Sunday afternoon when he defied a curfew and ignored warnings from the security forces. The man drove his car into Bara from the Shaikhan area where he was signalled by security officials to stop near Shaikhan Bridge, a security official said.

The man didn’t stop and sped away, the official said, adding that security officials manning a nearby check post shot at him, taking him for a suicide bomber. The man received fatal wounds and died on the spot. However, nothing was recovered from his vehicle or on his person in the subsequent search. The man couldn’t be immediately identified.

In another incident, three persons – among them two minors – were killed and four wounded when a mortar shell fired by unidentified men smashed into a house in Bara in the early hours of Saturday. A local administration official said it wasn’t immediately known who fired the rocket as security forces were bombing hideouts of militants in the nearby Akakhel area of Bara.

The house, according to the official, was located in the Kalanga area on the outskirts of Akakhel. It belonged to tribesman Din Muhammad and his two daughters and a sister-in-law were killed and four other members of his family were severely injured.

Since the area is under curfew initially no one came out to help the family. After some time local tribesmen pulled out the casualties from the rubble. The injured were rushed to a hospital for treatment, the official said.



In the neighbouring Orakzai Agency, two persons, including a Khasadar official, were killed and three others injured in a rocket attack on the office of the political administration Sunday morning. A local official said that militants fired two rockets at the office located in the Kalaya area in Lower Orakzai Agency which landed near the compound.

The official confirmed the casualties and identified the dead as Khasadar official Tariq and local tribesman Dunya Gul. A search operation was subsequently launched by the Khasadar force.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 3^rd, 2014.