Rising civilian deaths fuel outrage in NWA offensive

BANNU-

When Pakistani air force jets rained down missiles on a village in the country´s violence-wracked northwest last week, it was described as yet another victory over Taliban insurgents in an ongoing military offensive.

Now a new account has emerged of the killing of dozens of women and children in the air strikes, sparking anger over rising civilian casualties and fears that a new generation of radicals is being created.

“Today early morning 35 fleeing terrorists were killed through aerial strikes in Shawal Valley.” That was how the
military´s information wing chose to describe the July 16 incident

The terse press statement was part of a regular series of updates sent out by the army since the operation in the North Waziristan tribal district, aimed at clearing Taliban strongholds, began in mid-June.

Almost 500 “militants” are said to have been killed in the fighting so far, which has been enthusiastically backed by Pakistan´s major political parties and media, who see it as a means of tackling a decade-long Islamist insurgency that has claimed thousands of lives.

But the official toll has been impossible to verify, raising questions among rights activists over the offensive´s true human cost. According to multiple accounts by residents, 37 civilians were killed in Thursday´s attack — including 20 women and 10 children.

While villagers grieve, the incident has become a focus of rising anger among tribesmen who have managed to flee to border towns inside Pakistan, and who on Monday threatened to march on Islamabad if the operation does not end soon.

The bombardment in the Shawal Valley began just before 1:00 am, lighting up the sky as residents of Zoi Saidgai village sat down to eat their pre-dawn Ramadan meal.

“It continued for hours, targeting 11 houses,” Malik Mirzal Khan, an elder who lost his daughter and brother in the strikes, told from a payphone in his village.

“A single bomb dropped from the plane blew up two mud houses and the explosions could be heard 30 kilometres away,” Khan, part of a high-level peace council that attempted to avert the government offensive before it began, said. He added that residents had made a list of the dead, and none of them were militants. “My 13-year-old daughter, brother, his wife and two of his kids were killed,” he said. The rest, Khan added, “were not local or foreign militants, but innocent civilians who were killed. There were men, women, boys and girls. Those seven men who died were never involved in militancy.”

Noor Wali Khan, a 27-year-old truck driver, said he lost his mother and two-sisters-in-law when his house was bombed, while his brother and father are seriously wounded.

Both men´s accounts were backed up by three other witnesses and relatives spoke to, but the military has so far refused to comment on the matter on the record.