Tribesmen seek UN help to stop US drone attack

[Naveed Yaseen]

Mushtaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR: After Thursday night’s missile attack on a house in Azam Warsak area of South Waziristan Agency, three US spy planes Friday continued flying over South and North Waziristan tribal regions where the tribesmen appealed to the United Nations (UN) to stop American planes from attacking their villages without any justification.

The demand came from prominent Ahmadzai Wazir tribal elders who gathered at the funeral rites of seven people, killed in a missile attack at Kaza Panga village of Azam Warsak town, 15 kilometers west of Wana.

Tribal sources told The News from Wana by telephone that hundreds of tribesmen had gone to Azam Warsak to attend the funeral prayer of the slain people. They said the bodies of the slain men had disfigured beyond recognition.

Maulana Sheikh Hakim Khan, who is a religious scholar from Ahmadzai tribe and teaches at a madrassa at Wana, in his speech, condemned the missile attack on the village in which he claimed only innocent tribesmen were targeted.

Maulana Hakim appealed to the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on behalf of Ahmadzai Wazirs to play his role and save innocent people being killed in continuous air strikes by the CIA-operated pilot-less US spy planes.

The Maulana complained that these planes had deprived the innocent tribesmen of their mental peace and badly affected their routine life. The religious scholar said they had been disappointed with their own government, as despite their repeated appeals it had failed to stop the attacks on the civilian areas. He said it was surprising that as Pakistan had banned religious organisations without seeing any evidence of terrorism against them, but the whole world was silent over continuous killing of the tribesmen in the US attacks.

Tribal sources said three US spy planes continued flying over various villages of Wana, Azam Warsak, Birmal and Shakai areas of South Waziristan. Similarly, tribal sources from adjoining North Waziristan reported that three spy planes had been hovering over the tribal region since Friday morning.

Meanwhile, suspected militants in North Waziristan beheaded three Afghan nationals on charges of spying on Taliban for US forces in Afghanistan and threw their bodies on main road near Miramshah.

Also, they said three bodies of Afghan nationals had been found on main Bannu-Miramshah and Miramshah-Ghulam Khan roads. Sources close to the militants said some devices being used in spying purposes had also been recovered from the slain Afghan nationals.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=151670