US Missile Strike Kills 27 In Pakistan
ISLAMABAD — Dozens of followers of Pakistan's top Taliban commander were in a compound targeted by a U.S. missile strike that killed 27 near the Afghan border, intelligence officials said, while insurgents freed a kidnapped Chinese engineer elsewhere in the northwest region.
The missile strike Saturday appeared to be the deadliest yet by the American drone aircraft that prowl the frontier. It defied Pakistani warnings that the tactic is fueling extremism in the nuclear-armed Islamic nation.
The release of the Chinese man held by the Taliban since August was a rare bit of good news in Pakistan following the apparent beheading of a kidnapped Polish engineer and threats to kill an abducted American U.N. official. The exact terms of his Saturday release were not immediately clear, but a Chinese official said he was doing well.
In an unrelated interview, President Asif Ali Zardari said the Taliban had expanded their presence to a "huge amount" of Pakistan and were even eyeing a takeover of the state.
"We're fighting for the survival of Pakistan. We're not fighting for the survival of anybody else," Zardari said, according to a transcript of his remarks that CBS television said it would air Sunday.
Many Pakistanis believe the country is fighting Islamist militants, who have enjoyed state support in the past, only at Washington's behest.
Remotely piloted U.S. aircraft are believed to have launched more than 30 attacks over the past year, and American officials say al-Qaida's leadership and ability to support the insurgency in Afghanistan has been significantly weakened. But Pakistani officials say the vast majority of the victims are civilians.
After Saturday's strike, Taliban fighters surrounded the flattened compound in the village of Shrawangai Nazarkhel and carried away the dead and wounded in several vehicles. The village is in South Waziristan, part of the tribally governed area along the Afghan frontier considered the likely redoubt of al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden.
The victims included about 15 ethnic Uzbek militants and several Afghans, said Pakistani intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. The seniority of the militants was unclear.
Two of the officials said dozens of followers of Pakistan's top Taliban leader, Baitullah Mehsud, were staying in the compound when it was hit. There was no indication that Mehsud was present.
Pakistan's former government and the CIA have named Mehsud as the prime suspect behind the December 2007 killing of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Pakistani officials accuse him of harboring foreign fighters, including Central Asians linked to al-Qaida, and of training suicide bombers.
The accounts of Saturday's strike could not be verified independently. The tribally governed region is unsafe for reporters. The U.S. Embassy had no comment, while Pakistan's army spokesman was unavailable.
The new U.S. administration has brushed off Pakistani criticism that the missile strikes fuel extremist and anti-American sentiment and undercuts the government's own counterinsurgency strategy.
As overall security has deteriorated in Pakistan, foreigners have become prime targets. In recent months, Chinese, American, Iranian, Afghan and Polish citizens have been victims of abductions and killings.
Chinese engineer Long Xiaowei was kidnapped last August in the Dir region of northwest Pakistan. He was released on Saturday, and by Sunday he was at the Chinese embassy in Islamabad meeting with the ambassador, China's state-run Xinhua news service reported.
Long was in good health, Yao Jing, the deputy head of China's mission told The Associated Press.
He said he did not know if any ransom was paid or exactly how Long's release was secured. Muslim Khan, spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban in the northwest's Swat Valley, also confirmed the engineer's release.
Fears for foreign kidnap victims escalated this month after authorities received a video purportedly showing the beheading of Polish engineer Piotr Stanczak by Pakistani militants. Polish authorities believe the video is authentic.
On Friday, the kidnappers of an American employee of the United Nations threatened to kill him within 72 hours and issued a 20-second video of blindfolded John Solecki saying he was "sick and in trouble."
Gunmen seized Solecki on Feb. 2 in Quetta, a southwestern city near the Afghan border. The kidnappers identified themselves as the previously unknown Baluchistan Liberation United Front, indicating a link to separatists rather than to Islamist militants.
The kidnappers have demanded the release of 141 women allegedly held in Pakistan.
___
Associated Press writers Munir Ahmad, Nahal Toosi and Asif Shahzad in Islamabad, Abdul Sattar in Quetta and John Heilprin at the United Nations contributed to this report.
Loading comments…
STEPHEN GRAHAM | February 14, 2009 11:37 PM EST |
Compare other versions »Compare and versions