60 civilians killed in Tirah bombing

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
1

What a shame, 60 civilians lost their lives. I wonder- there will be any inquiry whatsoever………

Sunday, April 11, 2010

http://thenews.jang.com.pk/top_story_pics/4-11-2010_28263_l.gif

By Said Nazir Afridi & Ashrafuddin Pirzada

BARA/JAMRUD: Sixty civilians were killed and as many sustained injuries when fighter jets bombed Sra Vella in Jamrud Tehsil’s Tirah Valley in Khyber Agency on Saturday, local sources said.

However, official sources claimed 35 militants were killed when jets hit their hideouts in the valley.

The injured were shifted to hospitals in Jamrud and Peshawar through the difficult hilly areas and most of them succumbed to their injuries on the way, the sources said.

Tribal sources said two fighter jets dropped heavy bombs on the house of Hameed Gul in the Sra Vella area in Tirah Valley around 10:00am. As a result, the house was turned into rubble and three children and two women were killed.

“After 10 minutes of the bombardment when the villagers and labourers working on nearby water channel approached the house to retrieve the bodies, the fighter jets again bombed the house killing and injuring more than 150 people,” Sadiq Khan, an injured and eyewitness, told this scribe in the Civil Hospital Jamrud.

He said all those killed and injured, including women, in the bombardment were from Kokikhel, a sub-tribe of Afridis and were innocent people having no links with the militants.

Some of the slain tribesmen included a tribal elder, Said Noor, Khana Baan, Taweez Gul, Shaoor Baaz, Bismillah Khan, Amrat, Aman Shah, Tor Jan, Mahabat Khan, Daulat Khan, Khalid, Asadullah, Shakirullah, Khair Muhammad, Aziz, Umer Khan, Abid Khan, Khalid, Zahoor, Saeed, Qari Asadullah, Khanzeb, Waheel, Sabeel, Subedar Samandar Khan, Zahoor and Malik Jan.

“We are neither associated with the Taliban nor the militant group Lashkar-e-Islam (LI) then why security forces killed my son,” Ameen Jan, the father of Saeed, told this scribe while carrying a coffin for his son in Jamrud Bazaar.

He said the house which was bombarded by fighter jets was owned by three brothers Sher Mat Khan, who is a soldier in the Pakistan Army, and Yarmat Khan and Qimat Khan, who are serving in the Shawal Rifles in the paramilitary Frontier Corps.

He expressed surprise that the military authorities did not know that security forces pounded and destroyed the house of their own soldiers.

Meanwhile, security forces claimed that 35 militants were killed when jets pounded their hideouts in Fasht Killay, Maharaba Tapo and Dowa areas in Tirah Valley early in the day. The sources said the area is considered to be the stronghold of the LI.

Security forces had been carrying out airstrikes against the hideouts of militants of the Mangal Bagh-led LI and the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in Tirah Valley in Khyber Agency for the last seven months.

It was the first time that fighter jets carried out bombardment in the Kokikhel area of Jamrud Tehsil.

The residents of Jamrud Tehsil resented the bombardment and asked the government to bring to justice those responsible for the killing of innocent people. They said innocent people were killed and maimed but the authorities were claiming to have eliminated militants.
60 civilians killed in Tirah bombing

2

Re: 60 civilians killed in Tirah bombing

inna lillahi wa innailahi raji'un

3

Probably not, but terrorists are responsible for it. I hope army sends them to hell soon.

4

Re: 60 civilians killed in Tirah bombing

inna lillah wa inna ileyhi rajioon.

5

Re: 60 civilians killed in Tirah bombing

we shouldnt be using aerial bombings period. dont understand why you would do that instead of a Swat-like campaign.

6

Re: 60 civilians killed in Tirah bombing

Even if it was one civilian and his brother decides to 'avenge' the shaheed, God save us.

7

Re: 60 civilians killed in Tirah bombing

We are talking about Human beings here Firenze. Your comments are disgusting, to say the least.

Somehow, a life in USA is a million times more valuable than a life in Jamrud.

8

Re: 60 civilians killed in Tirah bombing

inna lillah wa inna alaihi rajioon

miconception alert. this happens much much more then what gets into the pakistani or other mainstream press, although some incidents do get into the world press, hope you can tell simply from your knowledge of military tactics being employed

but i do not agree with this war at all, so its all secondary

9

Re: 60 civilians killed in Tirah bombing

[note] reopened. please stick to the topic & do not derail thread. thx [/note]

10

Re: 60 civilians killed in Tirah bombing

Thank you MOD for reopening the thread.....

11

Re: 60 civilians killed in Tirah bombing

Said Nazir Afridi & Saeed Zaman Afridi

BARA/JAMRUD: Sixty-three people killed in Saturday’s airstrikes by the security forces were laid to rest in Sra Vella and other parts of Jamrud subdivision in the remote Tirah Valley of Khyber Agency on Sunday.

A large number of mourners participated in the funeral prayers offered in different areas of the valley. The jetfighters on Saturday hit the house of a tribesman Hameed Khan in the Sra Vella village inhabited by the Kukikhel Afridi sub-tribe, killing at least 63 people and injuring dozens others.

The injured were shifted to different hospitals in Peshawar after travelling for hours in the mountainous region. Political Agent of Khyber Agency, Shafeerullah Khan and Assistant Political Agent Jamrud, Rehan Gul Khattak visited different hospitals of Peshawar on Sunday where they inquired after the health of the injured and provided Rs20,000 to each of the 14 injured persons.

An official of the political administration said the political agent had convened a meeting of the elders belonging to Kukikhel tribe today in Khyber House, Peshawar in a bid to defuse the anger and tension caused by the incident in the Kukikhel tribe. He said the administration was likely to send a few trucks loaded with relief items to the affected area in Tirah Valley today.

He said the administration had planned to prepare the lists of the victims of the bombing by the jets in Sra Vella area and compensate the affectees for human and material losses at the earliest.

Talking to The News, tribal elders Malik Ikramullah and Malik Wazir Kukikhel condemned the killing of the innocent people and urged the government to probe the matter and punish those responsible for this inhuman act.

They said the Kukikhel tribe was loyal to Pakistan and it should not be treated as militants and terrorists. Federal Minister for Environment Hameedullah Jan Afridi asked the officials of Pakistan Air Force to tender apology for indiscriminate bombardment and airstrikes in Tirah valley.

Talking to reporters on phone from Islamabad on Sunday, he urged that the killing of civilians should be properly investigated and those responsible brought to justice. “I will take up the issue with Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani after he returns from the United States,” the federal minister said. He added that all the people killed in the airstrikes in Tirah Valley were innocent and the federal government would soon announce compensation and relief package for them.

12

Re: 60 civilians killed in Tirah bombing

.

13

Re: 60 civilians killed in Tirah bombing

There is a lot of question related to this incident

  • What procedure they follow in intelligence information- Just a local informant, no cross check whatsoever and then BANG BANG …

-How much you can trust a local informant – may be he just leveling some personal score

-Why governmental was sleeping from last 5-8 years when these two main groups were fighting and killing hundreds of people, they were easily controllable with few local police –Khasadar at that time

-Will these few trucks of goods will bring the temper down.

The people of FATA, like people from elsewhere in Pakistan, are paying very heavy price of the policy of strategic depth.

14

Hi brother is dead in suicide bombing already. God expected us the rest of the pakistanis to save him,

But we are supporting the suiciders and Islamists instead.

So God says - If you can't love Pakistan and instead bomb and burn it in the name of Islam, then what could I do?

15

It is truly sad incident.

However blaming just the SD policy is utterly wrong.

It is high time we realized that primitive tribal system are vulnerable to international terrorism, and thus we must end this despicable system once for all.

Abolish the stone age FCR.

It is time to extend laws and constitutional protections along with the police force, the rangers, and Pak army control all the way to the Afghan border.

Agencies should changed to districts and local people should be allowed to establish their district courts, records office, and local representatives at every level.

End this cave age Jirga system and replace it with modern systems.

Expand the highways,

And order that all the arms bazars and smuggling dens be closed down, otherwise they would be bombed to smithereens.

We let the tribalism disease fester for 60 years, and now we are paying the heavy price for having lawless territory within our borders.

16

Re: 60 civilians killed in Tirah bombing

collateral damage talk is Bull. and dropping leaflets doesnt mean you can do whatever you want in the area thereafter. in the swat operation there were widespread reports of the terrorists preventing residents from leaving to use them as shields. that could easily be the case now.

17

Why we let tribalism for 60 years?
becoz we need a buffer zone between Pakhtunkhawa and Afghanistan.
All these reforms needs huge resources and funds, which i dought Govt wants to spend on FATA. You know the worlds cheapest Govt system is Political system in FATA...a single APA a Tahesil dar and few Khasadar for a full Agency.

PESHAWAR: Up to 71 civilians were killed in a weekend strike by Pakistani jets near the Afghan border, survivors and a government official said Tuesday - a rare confirmation of civilian casualties that risks undercutting public support for the fight against militants.

The government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, said authorities had already handed out the equivalent of $125,000 in compensation to families of the victims in a remote village in the Khyber tribal area.

Also Tuesday, a village elder claimed 13 civilians had been killed in US missile strike on Monday night elsewhere in the northwest, contesting accounts by Pakistani security officials that four militants were killed.

Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas on Monday denied that any of the dead in the Pakistani air force attack were civilians, saying the army had intelligence that militants were gathering at the site of the strike. The victims were initially reported to be suspected militants.

Two survivors interviewed Tuesday in hospital in the main northwestern city of Peshawar gave the first detailed account of the attack, which took place Saturday morning.

They said most of the victims were killed when they were trying to rescue people trapped by an earlier strike on the house of a village elder.

''This house was bombed on absolutely wrong information,'' said Khanan Gul Khan, a resident of the village who was visiting a relative in hospital. ''This area has nothing to do with militants.''

“There were no militants,” Ikramullah Khan Kokikhel, a tribal elder from Saravilla, told Reuters. “It was a house of a tribesman whose three sons are serving as (government) military men.”

Fighter jets first attacked the house Saturday morning.

When residents arrived to remove bodies from the rubble, the jets attacked again, witnesses said.

“It's cruelty. We want a court martial of those who were behind this loss,” said Kokikhel.

Zahir Noor, a villager from Saravilla, said there were bunkers around the village, but they were for defence against the militants.

“We have opposed them openly and never allow them in our territory,” he said.

The senior government official in the region, Shafeerullah Wazir, agreed most of the dead were not militants.

“We believe that the information about the presence of militants in this locality was incorrect,” he told a tribal gathering in Peshawar, the major city that borders the Khyber region. “We're investigating it.”

He apologised on behalf of the government and said he regretted the loss of life.

The military denied civilians were killed.

“The militants had built fortified bunkers and their hideouts were struck after we got ground confirmation by intelligence officials that they were present in their hideouts,” a military official said on Sunday.

Khan said many of the families in the village, Sara Walla, had sons serving in the security forces and that it had a history of cooperating with the army. He said the owner of the house that was bombed initially, Hamid Khan, had two sons serving in the paramilitary Frontier Corps.

He said 68 people were killed and many more wounded. The political official said Monday that the families of 71 victims had been compensated, but did not identify them.

Dilla Baz Khan suffered a fractured arm in the second attack, which he said came around two hours after the first one.

''We were about to pull out a lady from the rubble when another jet came and bombed us,'' he said from the orthopedic ward of the Hayatabad medical complex in Peshawar. ''Then I lost consciousness.''

He said an official from the Khyber political administration visited him Monday and give him $220 for the loss of four relatives, including his brother. ''He said we are sorry for this and we pray for your early recovery,'' he said.

The Pakistani army, under heavy pressure from the United States, has moved forcefully against Taliban and al-Qaida militants in the northwest over the last 18 months. It regularly reports killing scores of militants in airstrikes, but rarely says it is responsible for civilian deaths.

Brief reports of significant civilian casualties in the strike Saturday have appeared in the local media in recent days, but have not attracted much attention or criticism.

An editorial Tuesday in Dawn, a respected English-language daily, said it was clear that the dead had no links to the militants and that the incident ''strengthens the hands of the Taliban.''

It said around 60 people were killed.

''Such actions defy description and an explanation is in order from those who ordered the assault,'' it said.

Pakistan intelligence officials, speaking on customary condition of anonymity, said a missile attack late Monday close to the town of Miramshah in North Waziristan killed four suspected militants. Noor Gul, a resident in the village, disputed that, saying 13 civilians, including two children, were killed.

18

Re: 60 civilians killed in Tirah bombing

As if fist swinging, golf playing, land grabbing, money hungry generals care about civilians in the first place.

19

Point well taken.

Sometimes you have to spend money and bring up people, otherwise they become cancerous and thus dangerous for the whole state.

FATA system and FCR belong to stone age, and subjecting the good people living their with such an atrocious system is hardly justifiable at any level be it humanitarian, religious, moral, ethical etc.

So please do not support FATA system or FCR.

It is a system that has forced the people in the TRIBAL agencies to become more TRIBAL by the day. and hence all the lawlessness and anarchy.

Our heart cries out to see Pak military getting used in the TRIBAL AREA.

And the reason is that the area is precisely that ! TRIBAL.

Had it been civilized and urbanized, we could have dealt with AlQaida insurgents long time ago.

Thank you.

20

[QUOTE]

PESHAWAR: Up to 71 civilians were killed in a weekend strike by Pakistani jets near the Afghan border, survivors and a government official said Tuesday - a rare confirmation of civilian casualties that risks undercutting public support for the fight against militants..
[/QUOTE]

no need to say i was right, i already know :)