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PAKISTAN/AFGHANISTAN: Civilians Flee Air Strikes on Militant Targets

Ashfaq Yusufzai

PESHAWAR, Oct 24 2007 (IPS) - Civilians are fleeing Pakistan’s lawless border areas abutting Afghanistan following heavy artillery fire and air strikes by the military against militant targets.

The spurt in military activity comes in the wake of a spike in attacks on the Pakistan army and supply convoys in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) after the breakdown of ceasefire agreements between the government and pro-Taliban tribal groups.

Nearly 300 troops including nine officers were kidnapped in South Waziristan, one of the FATA’s seven agencies, in end-August, and are yet to be set free. The soldiers are believed to have surrendered without firing a shot.

Early October, 50 soldiers were reported missing when a supply convoy was ambushed. Local reports say all 50 were killed and their bodies set on fire. The army claims only half the number were killed.

The military has retaliated with massive firepower killing scores of civilians and forcing thousands to flee to safer locations in FATA and neighbouring North West Frontier Province (NWFP).

"About 150 civilians, mostly, women, children and elderly people died and as many received burn injuries," confirmed a doctor who did not want to be identified, at the Agency Headquarters Hospital, Miramshah.

He said that the battles which began on Oct. 6 and continued for four days, were the deadliest attacks he has seen in his 20 years in Miramshah, the headquarters of the North Waziristan agency, on the porous Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

People in the thousands – from Ippi, Mir Ali, Haiderkhel and Iramshah villages of North Waziristan – have left for safer places. They have fled on foot, in tractor trailers, cars and other vehicles.

"They didn’t even let us bury our dead," a resident of Mir Ali, who had brought his wounded son to Peshawar, complained. "Our villages are under siege and our tribes scattered. All roads between Bannu and Mir Ali are closed. We had to trudge for hours on roads with the wounded and elderly, moving them in wheel-barrows."

A local journalist told IPS that 80 percent of families have fled the troubled areas, leaving behind one or two members to guard their properties.

In adjacent South Waziristan, massive displacements have taken place in Barwand, Fareeday, Shamkay, Gur Gurray, Garday Raghza, Spinkai and Spinkai Raghzai areas.

Here, a similar exodus was seen in October 2006 after massive air strikes by the army. Some 5,000 uprooted families returned home only two or three months later.

For some the displacement is permanent this year. "We cannot return to North Waziristan because I have sold my house at a throwaway price after the death of my two sons in bombing in the Mir Ali and Miramshah areas on Oct. 6," wept an aggrieved father, Rahim Gul.

A driver in the port city of Karachi, in Pakistan’s south, he had rushed home on hearing that his two sons were killed, and another crippled in the air strike.

Leader of the Pashtun-dominated Awami National Party, Senator Asfandyar Wali Khan told IPS that about 400 women and children were killed during the fighting. "We will resist the killing of innocent people in the name of US-led war on terrorism," he declared.

Since Pakistan enlisted in the so-called ‘war on terror’ in 2001, pressure has increased to flush out al Qaeda and Taliban who escaped US-led military operations in Afghanistan and sheltered in North and South Waziristan. Over the years, Pakistan says it has deployed 90,000 troops in the tribal areas.

The army suffered disastrous losses in 2004, and signed a string of peace treaties leaving FATA to the religious extremists. But attacks in Bajaur and South Waziristan in late 2006 and early 2007 enraged the extremists who swore revenge.

In July, the army’s storming of the Red Mosque in Islamabad added fuel to the fire. The militants targeted the army and police, forcing retaliatory action in which more than 100 people died.

"We pound with heavy artillery fire and shelling the areas from where the forces are attacked," said military spokesmen Maj. Gen. Arshad Waheed.

The civilians, mainly Mahsud and Wazir tribesmen, caught in between are the innocent casualties of war. Tariq Khan, a social activist, told IPS that scores of Wazir tribesmen were staying in tents erected on roadsides in various parts of Tank.

Initially, hundreds of tribesmen lived in the trucks and vans in which they arrived in Tank, he said. Soon, most had rented premises to stay and a few were given shelter by fellow tribesmen who had been living in Tank for some time.

"Some 10 families are living in the compound of my house as they cannot afford rented premises," said Hidayatullah, a Mahsud tribesman who runs a private business in Tank.

"We cannot live here forever; we will certainly go back to our homes, household items and agriculture land," said Ashiq Ali.

The independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) said civilians were caught in the crossfire. "We seek an immediate end to hostilities, bombing of villages and use of heavy weapons that endanger the lives of civilian population," Kamran Arif, HRCP’s NWFP chapter vice-chairperson, told IPS.