PESHAWAR: Six people, including three children and a similar number of suspected foreign militants, were killed and four others were seriously injured when an unmanned US drone reportedly fired four hellfire missiles at Zyara Leeta village of South Waziristan Agency (SWA) in the wee hours of Monday.
Official sources based in Wana said they had heard that a senior al-Qaeda commander was killed in the missile attack, carried out by a US drone. “Someone staying in the Madrassah must be an important figure as three US drones were continuously flying over Wana, Azam Warsak and Birmal towns for the past several days,” said a government official while pleading anonymity.
Residents in Zyara Leeta village in the border Birmal town, where the Madrassah was blitzed, told media by telephone that their village was struck by missiles at around 3:25am on Monday, destroying two buildings and causing damage to few others located in vicinity of the Madrassah.
They said a small Madrassah and a mosque, run by a local cleric Maulana Jalilur Rahman, and adjacent house owned by a local tribal elder Malik Salad Khan Wazir were damaged in the attack.
“After the attack, I saw two drones flying over the town at extremely low altitude, which I believe fired the missiles on the Madrassah,” said a panicked villager Mohammad Noor Wazir, while talking to this scribe by telephone.
He said six people sleeping inside the Madrassah were killed on the spot while three children sustained multiple injuries. Similarly, he said, a lady living in the adjoining house of one Salad Khan Wazir also received injuries.
A large number of Wazir tribesmen immediately thronged the village and helped retrieve bodies of the slain people and the injured from rubbles of the destroyed madrassa building. Those who took part in rescue operation told this scribe that all the bodies were badly mutilated and were beyond recognition.
“The attack was so severe that it shook the whole village and razed the Madrassah building,” said a senior commander of pro-government militants’ commander Maulvi Nazeer. Later, all the six slain people were laid to rest at the village graveyard while the injured were shifted to Agency Headquarters Hospital in Wana, regional headquarters of South Waziristan Agency.
“Nobody could recognise them whether they were locals or Arabs as their bodies were split into pieces,” said a local resident Mohammad Yaqub. However, another source in the militants said three among the dead were Arab fighters, who had just returned from Afghanistan’s Paktika province and were resting at the Madrassah.
There were also reports that senior al-Qaeda commander and an Egyptian chemical expert, Abu Khabab al-Masri was killed in the attack. But, a senior Taliban commander, when reached on telephone in Wana said, “Some of them might be Arab guests but Khabab was not among them.”
“As far as I know I had heard a person with this (Khabab) was reported to be killed in the US air strike in the Bajaur Agency.” The Wazir tribal militants, who are considered as pro-government for their armed action against the Uzbek militants that finally evicted them from the Wazirs inhabited areas, said they had already received alarms that something could happen in the area as Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani was visiting the US.
“Usually, our sources in the government inform us when US military is going to target our positions but they keep us in the complete dark whenever an important American visits Pakistan or our president or prime minister go there,” said a senior commander of Maulvi Nazeer on condition not to be named.
He said the incident could also once again affect an exemplary peace, which the militants had restored to the militancy-stricken South Waziristan. “It has sent a wave of shock and concern among the tribesmen and local Taliban as our government was keeping mum over continuous violation of its soil by the US drones and repeated attacks on its territory,” complained the Taliban commander.
“We might review our strategy if the government did not stop its support to the US,” he threatened. Sources also revealed that the US drones were also seen hovering over the hideouts of pro-government Taliban commander Maulvi Nazeer on Sunday, but he escaped by changing his locations thrice.
Reuters adds: A senior Pakistani security official said Abu Khabab al-Masri, an Egyptian chemist regarded as one of al-Qaeda’s top bomb makers, could have been the target.
“We have heard that Abu Khabab al-Masri might have been killed in the strike but there’s no confirmation as nobody could go there,” a security official, who declined to be identified, told Reuters.
The 55-year-old al-Masri has a $5 million US bounty on his head, and there have been reports of him being killed before. Spokesmen for Nato and US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan denied involvement in any cross-border strike, but could not speak for the CIA, which also operates drones.
Pakistan’s military spokesman said he had little information, and noted that US coalition forces were no longer informing the Pakistan army about every missile strike. “Some incident did take place but what kind of strike it was, whether it was missile or rocket attack or bomb explosion, we don’t know,” said Major General Athar Abbas. “Coalition forces don’t share information about any strike with us prior to any attack,” he said.
End. | 
Health
