Seven Killed In Khyber Agency Blast: Residents
Monday, June 30, 2008 at 3:52 pm
PESHAWAR :An explosion destroyed the home of a militant in Khyber Agency on Monday, killing seven people, but the cause of the blast was not clear, residents said.
Pakistani security forces launched an offensive in Khyber Agency, in the country’s northwest, on Saturday to push back militants who have been threatening the city of Peshawar.
“The house belonged to a member of the Haji Namdar group and seven people were killed,” said Sher Khan, a resident of the town of Bara where the blast took place.
Haji Namdar leads a militant faction in Khyber Agency.
Namdar told private Television channel the blast might have been caused by a missile. Bara is about 15 km (10 miles) southwest of Peshawar and about 40 km (25 miles) from the Afghan border.
“I don’t know who did it. We don’t have any conflict in our tribe. We are enemies of those who are enemies of Islam,” he said.
The offensive in Khyber is the first major military action a new government has launched since it took power after February elections, and comes after growing alarm about the spread of militants in the northwest.
It also came as US assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs, Richard Boucher, arrived in Pakistan for talks with government leaders.
Security forces backed by armoured vehicles and helicopters met virtually no resistance when they moved in and secured Bara and destroyed several militant compounds as well as an FM radio station and an interrogation centre, officials said.
The commander of the main militant group in the area, Mangal Bagh, left Bara for the remote Tirah valley before the offensive.
He told media on the weekend he had ordered his men to go home and not put up a fight, adding he did not know why security forces were attacking his group which did not harbour foreign militants or have links with the Taliban or al Qaeda.
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