US DRONE KILLS FIVE PEOPE OUTSIDE OF PAKISTAN TRIBAL REGION

        Kabul, 18 Muharam 1434/21 November 2013 (MINA) – A U.S. drone carried out a rare missile strike Thursday in northwest Pakistan outside the country’s remote tribal region, killing five people, Pakistani police and intelligence officials said.

        The missiles hit an Islamic seminary in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province’s Hangu district that was known to be visited by senior members of the Afghan Haqqani network, one of the most feared militant groups battling U.S. troops in neighboring Afghanistan, the officials said. One of the militants killed was a deputy of the Haqqani network’s leader.

         It was only the second drone attack outside Pakistan’s semiautonomous tribal region along the Afghan border since the strikes began in the country in 2004 and could increase tension between Islamabad and Washington. There was a strike in Khyber Pakhtunkwa’s Bannu district in 2008. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province is considered a “settled area” of Pakistan, meaning it is generally more populated and developed than the tribal region.

        “Now no place is safe. The drones are now firing missiles outside the tribal areas,” said Shaukat Yousufzai, health minister for the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial government, which has spoken out strongly against drone attacks.

         “It is Hangu today. Tomorrow it can be Karachi, Lahore or any other place,” Yousufzai told Pakistan’s Dunya TV, Russia Today and ABC News reported as monitored by Mi’raj News Agency (MINA).

         Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry also protested the strike in a statement sent to journalists, saying the attacks violate the country’s sovereignty.

         Thursday’s strike was the first since the U.S. killed former Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud on Nov. 1 in a missile attack in the North Waziristan tribal area. Pakistani officials were outraged by the attack because they said it came a day before they planned to invite Mehsud to hold peace talks.

         The Islamic seminary that was hit was located in the Tall area of Hangu, district police officer Iftikhar Ahmad said. Five people were killed in the attack. No one was seriously wounded, he said.

         Pakistani intelligence officials provided the names of five people killed in the strike. One, Ahmad Jan, was a deputy of the Haqqani network’s leader, Sirajuddin Haqqani, they said. The Haqqani leader has visited the area in his travels from North Waziristan to Afghanistan, but was not present at the time of the attack, one of the officials said.

         Two others killed in the strike were Gul Sher, leader of the Afghan Taliban in Paktia province, and Maulvi Hamidullah, leader of the Afghan Taliban in Khost province, the intelligence officials said. It was unclear whether the final two killed were militants.

         An Afghan intelligence official also confirmed Jan was killed in the attack. A member of the Haqqani network, which is allied with al-Qaida and the Afghan Taliban, confirmed that Jan was one of Sirajuddin Haqqani’s deputies.

        The Pakistani and Afghan officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to journalists.

        A local TV station showed video footage of the destroyed seminary, which had walls made out of mud and straw. The walls of the room that was targeted were caved in and pockmarked with shrapnel. The rest of the seminary appeared to be intact. The ground outside was littered with shoes and pools of blood. One person held up a piece of metal that appeared to be part of one of the missiles. (T/P04/E1)

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)