As many as 1,000 tribesmen chanting "Stop being stooges of the US army" rallied Thursday against the killing of eight civilians by security forces this week, witnesses said. The protest in Bajaur tribal region bordering Afghanistan came after an incident on Tuesday, in which a mortar fired by paramilitary troops hit a house, killing the civilians.
"There will be a popular uprising if the security forces do not stop killing innocent people," Jamaat-e-Islami party leader Haroon-ur Rasheed told the gathering. Tribesmen chanted in chorus "Stop killing innocent Pakistanis".
Security forces fired the mortar during clashes with militants who ambushed a paramilitary vehicle with a roadside bomb in Bajaur and then opened fire on troops who came to rescue them.
Troops have been fighting militants in the lawless tribal belt along the Afghan frontier since President Pervez Musharraf joined the US-led "war on terror" in late 2001. A wave of militancy has hit the country in the past 14 months, leaving more than 2,000 people dead.
Comments
Comments are closed.