Muhammad Reports From Pakistan, Tribal Areas

Dear John E. Carey,

I hope you will be in the best spirit of your life. Situation in Pakistan and tribal areas has been worsening with each passing day. A day after suicide bombing in Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier Province in which several people were Taliban and terrorists have attacked another city of the province killing some six people.

The administration, who the main supporter Taliban has almost crippled as they failed to control the situation. I want to bring in your notice that NWFP is being ruled by Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA), an alliance of religious parties, always extended support to Taliban and terrorists. According to a report, Taliban militants fought running battles with security forces Wednesday in Tank, killing six civilians in a rocket blast at a bus stop, officials said.

A further 17 people, including five security officials, were injured after the fighting broke out in Tank, a northwestern town that adjoins the volatile Waziristan Agency on the Afghan border.

“The militants fired several rockets from three directions and one of them hit a group of people waiting at the bus stand, killing five civilians,” district police chief Zulfiqar Cheema said.

“Three policemen were injured when they were fired at by militants near district courts. Police have located a group of about 15 armed militants and we are trying to nab them,” he said.

The clashes began when assailants hurled hand grenades at a police station in the town and fired mortars and rockets at police and paramilitary units, drawing fire in return, witnesses said.

The situation was tense and markets were closed as heavy gunfire continued in the town until late afternoon, residents said.

The fighting also damaged power and telephone lines.

“We have received five bodies, they are all civilians,” said Aurangzeb, a doctor at the town’s main hospital who goes by one name. Twelve civilians and five security men were admitted to the Tank hospital, he added.

Eight people in a serious condition had been transferred to a hospital in the nearby town of Dera Ismail Khan.

On Monday, militants threw grenades at a paramilitary vehicle in the town, killing a soldier and sparking exchanges of rocket and mortar fire that left one civilian dead.

District Police Officer Tank Mumtaz Zarin said that the incidents of firing and hand grenade explosions reported from Wazirabad area and main Tank bazaar. The skirmishes between the law enforcers and anti social elements began at about 11.30 a.m. when some militants hurled grenade at police officials near District Katchery in main Tank bazaar injuring the police official on duty. Since then the firing incidents continued unabated in the district.

The dead were identified as Ahmed Khan, Shaikh Rafique residents of Tank, Ghulam Farid resident of Kulachi and two brothers Tulab Khan and Niaz Muhammad and his brother of South Waziristan Agency. According to doctors, thirteen injured have been shifted to hosptial in D I Khan.

The shopkeepers and traders pulled their shutters down due to security risk and the school children remained struck in their schools due to heavy firing. Tank, a town of around 100,000 people, was placed under curfew for several weeks last month amid violence triggered by the killing of a militant leader after hardliners raided a school to recruit students to fight in Afghanistan.

The people of tribal areas are grateful to you for your cooperation with them. Your kindness with them has been bringing positive change.
Thank you very much.
Your sincerely,

Muhammad Khurshid,
Khar, Bajaur Agency
Tribal Areas Pakistan

Strike, violence paralyze Pakistan

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) – Political clashes that began Saturday have left 49 people dead in the southern port city of Karachi, as a general strike took hold across Pakistan in protest over the suspension of the country’s chief justice.

Police escort demonstrators in
Peshawar during a strike called
by opposition parties that
brought major cities to a standstill.

Another 100 people have been wounded in the violence. Paramilitary troops, which the Pakistani government gave the authority to shoot on sight, opened fire on protesters in Karachi Monday, killing two and wounding several in an ensuing gunbattle.

Three others were killed in a separate incident, and gunbattles were raging in several parts of the city, police said. 

The government announced a curfew and called out the army in Tank, a city in northwest Pakistan near the Afghan border. No one was allowed out of their houses, the government said.

The strike, called for by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf’s opponents, is one of the most successful since he came to power, Pakistan analysts told CNN. Rallies were held, and all of Pakistan’s civil and higher courts remained closed in support of chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry.

His case was to have been heard before the Supreme Court on Monday but was adjourned within minutes after one of 14 judges expected to hear the case refused to sit on the bench. The court will reconvene Tuesday with the 13 remaining justices.

Musharraf removed Chaudhry from his post on March 9, accusing him of misusing his powers to secure a top police job for his son. The dismissal sparked widespread but largely peaceful demonstrations by the nation’s attorneys and those who believed Musharraf abused his authority in suspending the country’s top judge.

Meanwhile, police said they were investigating the murder of Hammad Raza, a senior Pakistan Supreme Court official, at his home in Islamabad early Monday.

Raza was regarded as a key witness by the legal team representing Chaudhry, a Reuters report said.

Raza, a registrar of the Supreme Court, was shot at point-blank range by two or three gunmen just before dawn at his home in the capital, Islamabad, police and relatives said.

“He was an important person in our case,” Munir Ahmed Malik, a lawyer on Chaudhry’s legal team, told Reuters.

CNN’s Syed Mohsin Naqvi contributed to this report.