Tribesmen, Militants Clash in NW Pakistan; 46 Dead    
'Pakistan Times' NWFP Bureau

WANA: Local tribesmen and foreign militants fought a gun battle in northwestern Pakistan, leaving at least 46 dead, reports a foreign news agency quoting official sources.

At least two children were also reportedly killed and around 20 wounded when a stray mortar from the fighting in South Waziristan hit their school bus.

The clash between Uzbek militants and tribesmen broke out near the town of Wana on Monday and continued till Tuesday.

According to report, at least 46 people died in the fighting between militants and tribesmen on Monday and Tuesday.

A clash between tribesmen and Central Asian militants in South Waziristan earlier this month killed 18 people.

Details

Two warring factions fought pitched battles that left 24 people dead including four children, officials said Tuesday.

Heavy exchanges of rocket and mortar fire broke out on Monday and continued on Tuesday in Kalusha town in the troubled tribal region of South Waziristan, which borders Afghanistan, sources said.

One shell hit a group of private school students who had been left outside the town by a bus driver because of the violence. Four were killed and 27 were wounded, the officials said on condition of anonymity.

Seven local tribesmen were killed. Meanwhile more than 2,000 people blocked the road from Wana, the main city in South Waziristan, to the town of Angoor Adda.

The local administration gave them a 48-hour ultimatum to end the blockade otherwise action would be started against them, the officials said.

An earlier report had said that up to 30 people, at least half of them foreign al Qaeda-linked militants have been killed in two days of fighting with Pakistani tribesmen near the Afghan border, an official spokesman said on Tuesday.

A battle between foreign militants, most of them Uzbeks, and the region’s ethnic Pashtun tribesmen erupted on March 6 and followed government efforts to convince the tribesmen to help keep order.

The latest fighting broke out on Monday in Shin Warsak village, 7 km (4 miles) west of Wana, the main town in the South Waziristan.

“The number of casualties is rising and we have reports of 25 to 30 dead,” military spokesman Major-General Waheed Arshad was quoted by a foreign news agency as saying.

He said 15 to 20 of the dead were foreign militants and most are believed to be Uzbeks. About 30 people had been wounded.

Among the dead were three children killed by a mortar bomb when they were getting off a bus after school, a teacher in the area said.

“It’s a success of the government strategy ... the tribesmen are fed up with them because they and their activities adversely affect their lives and business,” Arshad said earlier.

Seventeen people, most of them Uzbeks, were killed in the March 6 battle that broke out after the militants tried to kill a tribal leader.●