Pakistan Conflict Monitor

Khyber Air Raid Kills Civilians

60 Civilians Killed in Tirah Bombing, The News International, 11 April 2010

EXCERPT: "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."

Read the full story.

Related articles:
Airstrikes victims laid to rest in Khyber Agency, The News International, 12 April 2010
"Scores dead" in Pakistan air raids, Al Jazeera, 11 April 2010
Air strikes kill 100 in Khyber and Orakzai, DAWN, 11 April 2010
Pakistani jets kill 45 people in Khyber: Militants, Reuters, 10 April 2010

Related posts:
Troops repel another attack on checkpost in Orakzai, 9 April 2010
More than 200,000 flee violence in tribal regions, 9 April 2010
Military takes counter-insurgency approach in Orakzai, 6 April 2010
Taliban attack triggers fierce fighting, raises doubts about group's weakened state, 26 March 2010
At least 30 Taliban killed as military repels attack on security post, 4 March 2010
Air strike kills 30 militants in NW, 22 February 2010

Suicide Bombing Kills Policemen, Civilians in Khyber Agency

Pakistan Blast Kills Policemen, Civilians, CBS News, 10 February 2010

EXCERPT: "In a sign of the continued militant threat, a suicide bomber attacked a vehicle carrying tribal police near Pakistan's volatile border with Afghanistan, killing 17 people, including 10 policemen, said a local government official. The attack came on the day the country's top civilian security official told the Associated Press that Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud had indeed died of wounds from a drone missile attack last month. It was the government's first categorical confirmation of the death of the feared militant, whose passing is likely to weaken, but not vanquish, the al Qaeda-linked insurgent network he led. The suicide bomber who attacked police in Pakistan's Khyber tribal area Wednesday was able to get inside their vehicle before detonating his explosives, said local tribesman Izzakhana Afridi, who witnessed the bombing. 'I saw him running and jumping into the Khasadar vehicle and then an explosion pushed me down to the ground some 50 yards away,' said Afridi, using the official name of the tribal police. Rasheed Khan, a local government official, said the blast killed 10 policemen, six civilians and one paramilitary officer. Police official Ibrahim Khan, who survived the explosion because he was outside the vehicle, said the blast also injured about a dozen other civilians."

Read the full story.

Related articles:
Explosion targets military convoy in Pakistan, 3 personnel killed, Kuwait News Agency, 10 February 2010
Army brigadier killed in helicopter rescue operation, DAWN, 10 February 2010
Militants blow up boys' school in Khyber Agency, DAWN, 18 January 2010
TTP names new head for Khyber Agency, The News International, 10 November 2009

Related reports:
Local militants struggle with Taliban government for control of Pakistan’s Khyber Agency, The Jamestown Foundation // Terrorism Monitor, 6 August 2009

Related posts:
Khyber agency military offensive advances, 1 December 2009
Militants regroup in northwest, army responds, 27 November 2009
Operation "I will see you" launched on Afghan border, 24 November 2009
Army expands operations, battles militants in northwest, 23 November 2009

Operation "I Will See You" Launched on Afghan Border

'New Pakistan Tribal Offensive Kills 18: Paramilitary', AFP, 24 November 2009

EXCERPT: "Pakistani ground troops and attack helicopters launched a new operation against militants in its lawless tribal belt on the Afghan border on Tuesday, saying they killed at least 18 rebels. . . The paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC) said the target of the latest offensive was Lashkar-e-Islam (Army of Islam), a criminal homegrown Islamist group with ties to the Taliban that is stirring up trouble in the Khyber tribal district. 'Eighteen militants were killed and six others apprehended during the operation,' said the FC in a statement. The operation was launched on intelligence information about Lashkar hideouts in Gurguri village, 12 kilometres (seven miles) northwest of Bara, the main town of Khyber which sits on the main NATO supply route into Afghanistan."

Read the full story.

Related articles:
Pakistan tells US that new Afghanistan strategy has exposed its borders to militants, Times Online, 24 November 2009
Pakistani troops target extremists in Khyber [blog], The Long War Journal, 24 November 2009
Pakistan launches Khyber offensive, Al Jazeera, 24 November 2009
Pakistan military says significant progress made in fight with Taliban, VOA News, 23 November 2009
Escaping Taliban may widen war as Pakistan pays cost, Bloomberg, 23 November 2009
Pakistan to send more troops to tribal area, China View, 21 November 2009

Related posts:
Army expands operations, battles militants in northwest, 23 November 2009
Why Pakistan won't fight the Afghan Taliban, 20 November 2009
NATO supply routes in Pakistan under threat, 13 November 2009