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Blast kills 32 anti-Taliban tribesmen in Pakistan

US missile attack kills 9, Taliban behead 4 tribal elders

AFP, Peshawar/ Khar
A suicide bomber blew himself up at a meeting of anti-Taliban tribal leaders in a Pakistani region on the Afghan border yesterday, killing at least 32 people and wounding dozens, officials said.
The attack happened a day after a force of pro-govemment tribesmen destroyed two militant hideouts in the Orakzai district, until recently the most peaceful of Pakistan's seven semi-autonomous tribal regions, they said.
"A bomber struck at a meeting of a tribal lashkar (force), killing at least 15 people and wounding dozens more," said Mohammed Luqman, a local government official.
"They were gathered to create a
tribal force against the militants. We have shifted the injured to hospitals.”
The members of the Alizai tribe had met in the town of Ghaljo in mountainous Orakzai, which is the only one of Pakistan's lawless tribal regions that does not border Afghanistan.
"The tribesmen blew up two hideouts of the militants a day earlier and it is possible this attack was in revenge for their actions," a security official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The attack also came a day after Taliban militants abducted and beheaded four tribal elders in the insurgency-hit Bajaur region who had attended another progovernment meeting, officials said.
The victims were abducted
when heading home after a jirga (gathering), which the Charmang tribe had called to plan action against Taliban militants in their area, a member of the tribe, Malik Abkar Jan, told AFP.
A local government official said residents found the beheaded bodies in a town near where the jirga had been held on Thursday.
"Locals have recovered the beheaded bodies of four kidnapped tribal elders from a small ditch," Jamil Khan said.
The Charmang elders held a further meeting on Friday over how to tackle Taliban activity in the lawless Bajaur district of northwestern Pakistan, one of the country's seven • semi-autonomous tribal regions.
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The army says more than 1,000 rebel fighters haw been killed since it launched an offensive in Bajaur in early August, including al-Qaeda's operational commander in the region. Egyptian Abu Saeed Al-Masri.
Pakistan's government has tried to enlist fiercely independent ethnic Pashtun tribesmen to back its military operations against Taliban and al-Qaeda extremists based near the Afghan frontier.
Taliban militants have killed dozens of tribal elders they accuse of backing the government in recent years using roadside bombs, executions and, less frequently, suicide bombings.
Pakistan's tribal zone has been wracked by violence since thousands of Taliban and al-Qaeda rebels sneaked into the country after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001.
Most of their attacks have however targeted security forces. In September, Taliban militants beheaded two police recruits one week after abducting 25 of them fromOrakzai.
The United States has become increasingly concerned at Pakistan's failure to act against Taliban militants based in the lawless tribal belt and in the adjoining North West Frontier Province bor-deringAfghanistan.
In the latest of a series of strikes inside Pakistan, a US missile attack on Thursday targeted a high-level meeting of al-Qaeda and Taliban commanders in the area.
The two missiles hit the house of Pakistani Taliban leader Hafiz Sahar Gul in North Waziristan district, killing nine people including six Arab militants, officials said.
The prime targets of the attack had left the property minutes before . the strike, they said.
The incident in the lawless district, a known haunt of Taliban and al-Qaeda militants, comes after a stringof US attacks on Pakistani soil that have raised tensions between Islamabad and Washington.