NYT : Tribesmen Urge Pakistan to Halt Air Raids After Heavy Civilian and Combatant Toll

Tribesmen Urge Pakistan to Halt Air Raids After Heavy Civilian and Combatant Toll

By ISMAIL KHAN and CARLOTTA GALL | October 11, 2007

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Oct. 10 — Tribesmen appealed to the Pakistani military on Wednesday to cease air raids in the tribal regions near Afghanistan so they could bury some 60 people killed in heavy fighting with militants over the last few days.

The military was also counting its losses, and one security official, who asked not to be named, said that more than 60 members of the security forces had been killed in the four days of fighting. Scores of people have fled the area and taken refuge with the wounded outside the region.

The fighting has been the fiercest in the tribal areas in several years and has been concentrated in the area of Mir Ali in the tribal region of North Waziristan, which the Taliban and Al Qaeda have long used as a base. It seems to have halted after heavy casualties on both sides and among the civilian population.

A security official said the militants had left the area, and had probably pulled back to the Shawal Mountains, a remote area close to the Afghan border that has been used by members of the Taliban and foreign Qaeda militants. The local tribesmen asked the military to stop the bombardment because the militants had left, the official said.

A group of local tribesmen met with military officials in Miram Shah, the capital of North Waziristan, where the military has a base, and requested a cessation of hostilities so they could bury their dead, local journalists reported. Residents reached by telephone said that except for a morning round of shelling, the day was relatively quiet.

Military planes dropped pamphlets on the town of Mir Ali telling the people who had fled their homes that it was safe to return. “The Army will not fire heavy weapons like missiles, artillery and rockets on residential areas,” the pamphlets said, according to townspeople reached by phone.

Officials have said dozens of militants have been killed, but there has been no independent confirmation. Foreign fighters are known to operate in and around Mir Ali. Uzbek fighters were involved in the clashes, and several Arabs commanded the militant forces, the security official said.

The militants ambushed military convoys on Saturday and Sunday, killing about 30 soldiers. The Pakistani air force responded by bombing half a dozen of the surrounding villages.

People living in Mir Ali said villagers buried more than 60 people killed in the bombing raids on Tuesday in the villages of Ipi and Haider Khel. Villagers reported Tuesday that 12 bombs were dropped on the bazaar in Ipi. Many of the dead were civilians; it is not clear if there were also fighters among them.

The security official said that a top commander under Siraj Haqqani, the son of a veteran Afghan mujahedeen leader, Jalaluddin Haqqani, had been confirmed killed on Monday. The militant commander, Eid Niaz Borakhel, was an important lieutenant of Siraj Haqqani and the leader of the Taliban council in the regional headquarters at Miram Shah.

The Haqqanis control the most powerful militant network in the region and are known as important protectors and allies of members of Al Qaeda in the region.

Two shopkeepers in Mir Ali, who asked not to be named, said frightened tribesmen had started fleeing from several villages after the airstrikes and artillery bombardments in the area. They said many families were seen leaving their homes in a string of nine villages around Mir Ali and heading toward the Bannu district along unused railroad tracks to avoid the main roads. Security forces have cordoned off main roads.

“I walked on foot with my family from Mir Ali and reached Bannu in four hours,” said a local journalist, Ihsanullah Dawar, who lives in the area. He said that Mir Ali had been besieged for the last four days and that the main road had been closed to traffic.

Doctors in the hospital in Bannu said that 165 wounded people had been treated, and that 60 of them were in a critical condition, including women and children.

Ismail Khan reported from Peshawar, and Carlotta Gall from Islamabad, Pakistan.