DarkTimes - 24Hr Global News Blog

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan — NATO helicopter gunships attacked three houses near a stronghold of the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Pakistan’s South Waziristan region early Wednesday, killing at least 15 people, including women and children, according to local residents, a Taliban commander and the governor of the North-West Frontier Province.

The attacks were aimed at three houses in the village of Jala Khel in the Angoor Adda area of South Waziristan, less than a mile from the border with Afghanistan, the Taliban commander and local residents said.

The helicopter attacks occurred at about 3 a.m. and killed 20 people, according to the provincial governor, Owais Ahmed Ghanisaid.

The governor, the most powerful civilian leader in the province which abuts South Waziristan, condemned the attacks and called for retaliation by Pakistan.

An American military spokesman at Bagram airbase declined to comment on the reports. The spokesman did not deny that the attack had occurred. Often, a statement of no comment by American and NATO spokesmen in Afghanistan, where NATO and American forces are fighting militants from the Taliban and Al Qaeda, indicates that the coalition forces were involved in a cross-border attack.

A Taliban commander, known by the nom de guerre Commander Malang, said the attack took place close to a Pakistani military position on the border and killed 15 people. But the Pakistani military took no action, he said.

The incursion of NATO and American aircraft and helicopters into Pakistan in so-called hot pursuit of Taliban militants is a contentious issue for Pakistan.

Publicly, the Pakistani authorities say their country’s sovereignty must be respected and always condemn such intrusions.

At the same time, Washington has become more vocal about increased attacks by Taliban and Al Qaeda forces crossing into Afghanistan from Pakistan to fight coalition forces.

There had been growing expectation among Pakistanis that NATO units would respond by attacking more forcefully into Pakistani territory.

The Angoor Adda area is on the border with Afghanistan, and its mud-walled compounds are known as a center of Taliban and Al Qaeda strength.

Sher Khan, a phone company employee in Angoor Adda, said in a telephone interview that 19 people were killed in the raid. He said most of the dead were women and children.

A Pakistani intelligence official in South Waziristan said in a telephone interview that a group of Taliban had crossed the border into Afghanistan before an attack late Tuesday. In response, the Afghan National Army called for air support, the intelligence official said, speaking in return for customary anonymity.

The NATO helicopters chased the Taliban militants across the border back into South Waziristan, according to the intelligence official’s account.

But the Taliban militants escaped, the official said.

A spokesman at Inter Services Public Relations, the arm of the Pakistani military that provides information to reporters, said efforts were still being made to investigate the attack.

|Sources NYTIMES|