While Pakistan is battling domestic Islamists, it is at the same time accused of backing Taliban militants fighting the Afghan government and foreign forces there, as well as Muslim militants fighting Indian rule in the disputed Kashmir region. Agencies
An unmanned United States drone aircraft crashed in Pakistan’s lawless northwestern tribal district on Sunday after suffering a technical fault, local security officials said. The drone, the second to crash in Pakistan within the last month, went down in South Waziristan, part of the lawless tribal belt on the Afghan border that Washington calls a global headquarters of al-Qaeda. “The American drone crashed in Zangara village of South Waziristan, apparently because of some technical faults,” a security official in Peshawar, the main town in Pakistan’s northwest, told AFP. Two intelligence officials in Wana, the main town of South Waziristan, confirmed the incident. It was an armed Predator drone, they said. The United States uses unmanned surveillance aircraft in its war against the Taliban in Afghanistan to monitor militants in Pakistan, from where al-Qaeda and Taliban-linked fighters launch attacks in Afghanistan. It also uses Predator armed drones to launch missile attacks aimed at militants in Pakistan’s unstable northwestern border areas. US drone crashes are very rare in Pakistan, but a surveillance drone equipped with a camera crashed in southwestern Pakistan on August 25. In September 2008, tribesmen in South Waziristan claimed to have shot down another surveillance drone in Jalal village, near the Afghan border. The Pakistani army said at the time that it was investigating that incident but did not make the results of the probe public. 15 people killed Meanwhile, at least fifteen people were killed when Taliban militants attacked a checkpost manned by pro-government tribesman and security forces in northwest Pakistan, officials said on Sunday. Armed with assault rifles and hand grenades, the militants killed four ethnic Pashtun tribesmen and a paramilitary soldier in the late Saturday attack. Members of a tribal militia and security forces retaliated, killing 10 militants, said a senior government official in the Khyber region near the Afghan border, where the incident took place. “A large number of weapons from the militants were also confiscated,” said the official, Rehan Khattak. Pakistan’s Taliban, who are close to al-Qaeda, have stepped up attacks on Pashtun tribes who have raised militias to help security forces. At least 40 people were killed and 68 wounded when a suicide bomber attacked a funeral of a member of a pro-government tribe in the northwestern Lower Dir district on Thursday. Militants also claimed responsibility for an attack on a school bus on Tuesday which killed five people, saying the children on the bus were from a pro-government tribe. Accusations While Pakistan is battling domestic Islamists, it is at the same time accused of backing Taliban militants fighting the Afghan government and foreign forces there, as well as Muslim militants fighting Indian rule in the disputed Kashmir region. Pakistan denies those accusations. Pakistani authorities have been encouraging the Pashtun tribes to revive traditional militias to counter the growing number of militants fighting the Pakistani state. Under a centuries-old tradition, the tribes raise the militias, or lashkars, in their semi-autonomous regions to fight criminal gangs and enforce their tribal codes. The drive has had limited success after the Taliban hit back by killing hundreds of tribal leaders and silencing others. Some tribal leaders complain that the government has failed to provide the militias with adequate funding or weapons, leaving them at the mercy of the Taliban.
