• IED blast kills 16 Pakistani soldiers despite Taliban leader's directive

    By Mushtaq Yusufzai, NBC News

    PESHAWAR, Pakistan – An improvised explosive device detonated amid a Pakistani military convoy deployed to fight al-Qaida and militant groups Sunday in the volatile North Waziristan tribal region, leaving 16 army soldiers dead and 22 wounded, military officials said.


    The attack took place only a day after Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mahsud asked his fighters to refrain from attacking Pakistani security forces and government installations in North Waziristan and abide by a peace accord signed between the government and regional Taliban led by Hafiz Gul Bahadur.

    No militant group claimed responsibility for the deadliest attack on Pakistani security forces, though military authorities and government officials blamed anti-Pakistan militant organizations opposed to the restoration of peace in North Waziristan.

    Military officials said the local administration had banned civilian traffic from roads in all of North Waziristan on Sunday because of the movements of the security forces in the tribal region.

    The officials said unknown people planted the IED on the Miranshah-Razmak road which went off when the military convoy passed through the mountainous Narray Wala area.

    Government officials in the Razmak subdivision said two heavy military trucks were damaged in the blast. They said one of the trucks, which was carrying more than two dozen soldiers, plunged into a 1,000-foot-deep ravine after being hit by the IED.

    They said they believe most of the soldiers died when the truck fell into the ravine.

    Military officials said it took hours of frantic effort to recover the bodies and injured soldiers from the ravine before dark. Most of the injured were airlifted to military hospitals in Bannu and Peshawar.

    Military sources said they feared the death toll would rise because most of the injured were in critical condition.

    An official of the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) had the death toll at 14 soldiers and the number of wounded at 22. The discrepancy in the death toll was not explained.

    Government and military authorities said the attack came as a surprise after Mahsud asked his fighters to abide by the peace accord signed between the government and local Taliban in North Waziristan.

    Video: US drone strikes reportedly increase in Pakistan

    Government officials speculated that there might be elements within the Pakistani Taliban who did not want peace to prevail in North Waziristan or there could be a foreign presence trying to create mistrust between the tribespeople and armed forces.

    One of the officials in Miranshah said that military officials were encouraged enough by the peace initiative by the Taliban militants that they relaxed curfew for the local tribespeople three times on Sunday on the road where the attack took place so expectant mothers could be taken to hospital to give birth.

    "Nobody expected an attack on Pakistani forces," a government official said on condition of anonymity.

    The militants affiliated with Mahsud on Saturday issued a pamphlet in which the leader directed his men to abide by the peace agreement between local Taliban and the government for the maintenance of law and order in North Waziristan.

    Pakistani Taliban spokesman Ihsanullah Ihsan, calling from an undisclosed location, confirmed the Mahsud directive.

    "Oh, mujahedeen brothers! As you know that the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban under the leadership of Mullah Mohammad Omar Mujahid are engaged in jihad against the crusaders and infidels, and are supporters of each other in the ongoing holy war, the enemies do not want to see us united and disciplined against them and are being trying to divide us," Mahsud said in the pamphlet.

  • US drone strikes kill 18 Pakistani militants, sources tell NBC

    By Mushtaq Yusufzai, NBC News

    Updated at 10:09 a.m. ET: PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Eighteen suspected militants were killed in three separate American drone attacks in Pakistan's South Waziristan on Saturday night, military and government sources told NBC News. 

    Pakistani military officials said the drones fired 10 missiles and pounded three different militant compounds in the Babar district. Eighteen people died in the drone attacks, said the officials, who asked not to be named because they were not allowed to speak to the media.

    Slideshow: Pakistan: A nation in turmoil

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    The militants targeted were led by Hakimullah Mehsud and had set up sanctuaries in the mountainous district, about 85 miles northeast of Wana, the capital of the South Waziristan tribal region. Mehsud's fighters often target the Pakistani army. 

    The death toll could rise as dozens of militants were present in the compound during the drone strikes, NBC sources said. 

    Tribesmen in the adjoining Razmak area of the North Waziristan region told NBC News that they had heard heavy blasts overnight but could not confirm if the explosions were drone strikes.

    Islamabad opposes the use of U.S. drones in its territory, but is believed to have tacitly approved some strikes in past. The drone campaign also infuriates many Pakistanis who see them as a violation of their country's sovereignty. Many Pakistanis complain that innocent civilians have also been killed, something the U.S. rejects. 


    Pakistani security forces conducted a massive military operation against the militants in South Waziristan in October 2009 but spared the area targeted in the overnight attack.

    An A to Z guide to the Islamic Republic of 'Banistan'

    A top Pakistani Taliban commander, Maulvi Nazeer, was killed in a drone attack on Wednesday, along with his senior commanders and fighters in South Waziristan.

    He was considered pro-government because he and his men had signed a peace accord and pledged not to fight against Pakistani forces. He was affiliated with the Afghan Taliban and fought U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan.

    On Saturday, an estimated 6,000 tribesmen demonstrated in Azam Warsak, which is about 10 miles from Wana, to protest the killing of Nazeer.  They pledged to continue fighting alongside the Afghan Taliban in Afghanistan.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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  • Up to 25 Shiites dragged off bus and shot dead in Pakistan

    By Mushtaq Yusufzai, NBC News

    ISLAMABAD – Up to 25 Shiites were dragged from passenger buses and killed early Thursday in a suspected sectarian attack, police and government officials said.

    The victims were ordered off three buses by unknown gunmen and then shot dead, according to a senior government official.

    There have been several such sectarian attacks in the region in the past, including one earlier this year in which 25 Shiites were killed.

    Thursday's attack took place in the remote mountainous Lalusar area of Naran valley in northern Pakistan.

    A senior police official said three buses taking passengers from Rawalpindi, near the capital Islamabad, to the Astore district of northern Pakistan, were attack early in the morning.

    Commissioner Hazara division Khalid Umarzai said 18-25 people are suspected to have been killed.


    "According to our information, around 15 armed men who were wearing Pakistan army uniform stopped the buses," Umarzai said. "They disembarked all the passengers and checked their identity cards and then opened fire at them. But this is initial information and death toll could rise as the area is far away and it will take some time in reaching complete information to us."

    He said a group of foreign visitors, including a party of Japanese travelers, informed them about the incident.

    Police official Shah Nawaz said most of the people traveling in buses were from Shiite Muslim community. He said they were using the Kaghan-Naran route because of previous attacks on the Karakurram highway.

    Air base attack
    Earlier, militants attacked a military air base in Pakistan, prompting a five-hour firefight that killed two security guards and six attackers and left the base commander seriously injured.

    The militants, wearing military uniforms and suicide vests, entered the Kamra airbase, close to the capital, Islamabad.

    Slideshow: Pakistan: A nation in turmoil

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    A Pakistan Air Force spokesman said the militants attacked the air base where JF-17 Thunder planes are assembled. However, the spokesman said those aircraft were not present at the airbase during the attack.

    Security officials inside the base said some security personnel have been injured in exchange of fire with the militants.

    No militant group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack but Pakistani security officials believed the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP headed by Hakimullah Mahsud could be behind the attack.

    Pakistani intelligence agencies had released reports a few days ago and said that militants could attack PAF and other military installations during the final week of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month.

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  • Journalist gunned down during prayers in Pakistan

    Courtesy Voice Of America

    Slain journalist Mukarram Atif, reporting for the Voice of America from Pakistan's Mohmand tribal agency.

    By Mushtaq Yusufzai and Amna Nawaz, NBC News

    PESHAWAR, Pakistan – According to his family,  Mukarram Khan Aatif, 47, knew the risks he faced, but still decided to continue reporting.

    As a journalist in Pakistan's northwest and tribal regions, Aatif worked for the U.S.-government funded Voice of America Pashto-language radio service Deewa, and for a local Pakistani Urdu-language network called Dunya. He covered his own communities in the tribal regions which are ravaged by militancy and terrorism.

    Aatif told the stories of those who had been displaced after military operations forced them from their homes. His colleagues say he tried to balance the stories about violence and terror with the underreported, but vital stories about education and health.

    "He used to find a news story in everything," said colleague Hameedullah Khan.

    But his reporting upset the Taliban, who say Aatif refused to cover them the way they wanted, and dared to criticize their actions - which is why, they say, two gunmen armed with AK-47's entered the mosque where Aatif was praying last week, and shot him dead. 

    "He was on our hit list," Taliban spokesman Ihsannullah Ihsan told NBC News. "And now we will target other journalists who have become a party against the Taliban."

    Aatif became the 38th Pakistani journalist to be killed since 2002, and the first to be assassinated in 2012.

    The Committee to Protect Journalists named Pakistan the deadliest country to report from for the second consecutive year in 2011. Of the 46 journalists killed as a result of their work across the world last year, seven died in Pakistan. In 2010, out of 44 journalists killed worldwide, eight were from Pakistan. Local journalists, typically working in and around their home communities, are often at greater risk. 

    Aatif was no exception. He narrowly escaped a twin suicide attack while reporting from the Mohmand tribal region in December 2010. Two other journalists were killed in that attack. His colleagues say he often talked about the horror he witnessed that day, as he watched the blasts from less than 100 yards away. 
     
    Three years ago, when the Taliban decided they were unhappy with his reporting and passed along a death threat through the local journalists’ association, Aatif chose to move his family from the tribal regions to an area just outside of Peshawar, rather than stop working.

    "We left our native village in Mohmand and shifted our family to Shabqadar because of threats from the Taliban militants, but they chased us even here," said Haji Yaqoob Khan, Aatif's older brother. "He was a journalist, and well-known to everybody, but to me, he was still a child. I was always worried for his security, but I couldn't save his life."

    Colleagues and family members remember Aatif as an honest, hospitable, and hard-working man. Hundreds attended his funeral prayers in Mohmand last week, and dozens of his colleagues called for justice outside the Peshawar Press Club, as they protested the murder of the man they had all come to know and respect over the years.

    Colleague Hameedullah Khan remembers Aatif as a man who was shy with strangers, but was the life of the party among friends; a man who loved to share jokes and laugh.

    "He used to buy chocolates from the village shop, just to hand them out to the local children," said his brother.

    Voice of America Director David Ensor said that Aatif  “risked his life on a daily basis to provide his audience with fair and balanced news from this critical region."

    "We mourn the loss of our colleague," said Ensor. "We call on authorities in Pakistan to do more to protect journalists working there and bring his killers to justice."

    Safdar Hayat Dawar, president of the Tribal Union of Journalists, knew Aatif as a "thoroughly professional" journalist who remained committed to his reporting, despite the threats. Dawar worries for the dozens of journalists who continue to work in the region.

    "How are they supposed to work, when they're suspected of spying for the U.S. or for Pakistan's armed forces?" said Dawar. "Twelve journalists have been gunned down in the tribal areas since 2005, and we don't know what will happen next."

    NBC News’ Amna Nawaz contributed to this report from Islamabad.