| 15 pakistani troops die in alqaida hunt { March 23 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active) http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-3894674,00.htmlhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-3894674,00.html
15 Pakistani Troops Die in al-Qaida Hunt Tuesday March 23, 2004 6:01 PM
By AHSANULLAH WAZIR
Associated Press Writer
WANA, Pakistan (AP) - Assailants launched two rocket attacks on Pakistani forces on the edge of a bloody offensive against al-Qaida militants, raising fears Tuesday that the crackdown may be met by a wider backlash from enraged tribal fighters.
The attacks late Monday, which killed 15 soldiers, illustrate the dangerous line President Gen. Pervez Musharraf is walking as he seeks to appease Washington without disrupting Pakistan's delicate balance of Islamic and secular concerns.
Lawmakers from a hard-line religious alliance that holds power in the North West Frontier Province, where the operation is unfolding, have called for nationwide protests against the offensive.
``We demand that army and paramilitary troops should be immediately withdrawn,'' said Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, a lawmaker in Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, a leading party in the alliance.
``This is our army and we will not let them be used for American interests,'' said at a conference in the southwestern city of Quetta. ``Gen. Musharraf is carrying out this operation to make (President) Bush's election campaign a success.''
The weeklong military operation, near the town of Wana, is the largest since Musharraf threw his support behind the U.S.-led war on terror in late 2001 - a move that disenchanted many in this Islamic country of 150 million people.
The battleground is in South Waziristan, one of the seven semiautonomous tribal regions near the Afghan border. Many tribesmen resent Musharraf's decision to deploy 70,000 troops to help seal the rugged frontier, and sympathize with Afghanistan's former Taliban rulers and al-Qaida.
Hundreds of militants - suspected of protecting a ``high-value'' terrorist suspect, possibly al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri - have fiercely fought thousands of Pakistani forces using artillery and helicopter gunships.
While the militants' last redoubt in mud-brick fortresses was quiet Tuesday as soldiers conducted house-to-house searches, violence has spread in the past 24 hours to neighboring areas.
Late Monday, attackers ambushed a Pakistani army convoy some 30 miles east of Wana, hitting at least six trucks, some carrying gasoline.
A government official in Sarwakai where the attack happened said at least 12 soldiers were killed and 15 injured as the vehicles exploded. The assailants apparently fled unharmed.
Meanwhile, about 120 miles to the northeast, assailants fired rockets on an army checkpoint Monday, killing three soldiers and wounding four, a senior security official said.
That attack happened in Parachinar, in North Waziristan, where two other rocket attacks were reported overnight, causing no injuries.
Brig. Mahmood Shah, chief of security for the tribal areas, confirmed the attacks, but refused to give details about casualties. He said more than 2,000 men from the Mahsud tribe who live around Sarwakai were helping army troops track down the assailants in the convoy attack.
Protracted efforts by tribal elders to mediate with Yargul Khel tribesmen fighting alongside the al-Qaida militants near Wana have made little headway, despite a visit by elders to the battle zone Monday under a white flag.
Speculation is growing that the ``high-value target'' believed to have been hiding in the besieged region could have escaped, after the military discovered a mile-long tunnel leading from a besieged mud fortress.
Some senior Pakistani officials said they believed al-Qaida's No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, may have been there, although the government has repeatedly said it does not know who is inside.
The military said it was conducting DNA tests to identify six suspected foreign terrorists killed in the fighting, but would not say whether they included any important terror figures. It has arrested 123 suspects, including Pakistanis, Arabs, Chechens, Uzbeks and ethnic Uighurs from China.
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