By Staff Reporter
PESHAWAR: Conflicting accounts emerged on Monday about a deadly explosion in Pakistan’s restive northwest that killed at least two dozen people, with police blaming a blast at a militant compound and local lawmakers suggesting an aerial strike that struck civilian homes.
The incident took place in the remote Tirah Valley of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, close to the border with Afghanistan, a region that has long grappled with insurgent presence. Local police officer Zafar Khan said the explosion resulted from bomb-making materials stored by Pakistani Taliban fighters, destroying several nearby homes and killing at least 24 people, including 10 civilians — among them women and children — and 14 militants.
Khan said two local Pakistani Taliban commanders, Aman Gul and Masood Khan, had set up hideouts in the compound, using it as a factory for producing roadside bombs. The militants had used civilians as human shields and had recently stored weapons in mosques elsewhere in the area.
But opposition politicians and security sources provided a starkly different narrative, telling newswire AFP that the deaths stemmed from a nighttime raid by security force aircraft. Iqbal Afridi, an opposition member of the National Assembly representing the Khyber Tribal district, said 23 civilians were killed in the assault.
“It was the security force’s aircraft that carried out the shelling. It’s their shelling that killed 23 people,” Afridi told AFP.
A senior police officer stationed in the town of Tirah, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said seven women and four children were among the dead. “The jets targeted four houses, which were completely destroyed,” the officer told AFP. “Tirah is near the Pakistan-Afghan border and is home to multiple TTP hideouts… In recent months, there have been several attacks on security forces in this area.”
Another security officer based in Peshawar, who also confirmed the death toll, said there are “dozens of TTP hideouts” in the region where militants live with their families.
No official statement has been released by the government or armed forces regarding the incident.
The conflicting reports come amid a surge in militant violence in Pakistan’s northwest, much of it claimed by the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP. The group has intensified its campaign against security forces in mountainous border areas with Afghanistan in recent months. Pakistan’s military has responded with operations against the TTP in Khyber, Bajaur and other parts of the region.
Local media reported that the explosion prompted widespread outrage. Around 2,000 people gathered in a nearby town Monday afternoon to protest the raid.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan expressed deep shock over reports of civilian deaths from alleged aerial bombing and called for an investigation.
“The HRCP is deeply shocked to learn that a number of civilians, including children, have been killed, allegedly as a result of aerial bombing in Tirah, Khyber district, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,” the organization posted on X. It demanded that “the authorities carry out an immediate and impartial inquiry into the incident and hold to account those responsible.”
“The state is constitutionally bound to protect all civilians’ right to life, which it has repeatedly failed to secure,” the statement read.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Speaker Babar Swati urged the federal and provincial governments to launch a “transparent and immediate investigation into the incident, identify those responsible, and not only provide immediate relief and compensation to the affected families but also take comprehensive measures for their rehabilitation.” In a statement on his X account, Swati expressed sorrow over the “martyrdom of innocent civilians and the destruction of homes due to the bombardment by jet aircraft.”
Special Assistant to the Chief Minister for Communication and Works Sohail Afridi addressed the matter in the provincial assembly session, describing the event as a “horrifying tragedy” that occurred at 2 am. He alleged that 25 people, including women and children, were killed when “mortar and bombs were dropped” on locals, blaming security forces, though responsibility has not been independently established.
Lawmaker Afridi, a National Assembly member from Khyber, shared a video message in Pashto expressing sorrow over the killings of elderly women and children in “shelling by jets.” He urged people to gather at the site to protest and said such incidents have become routine. “The killing of civilians has become a routine,” he said. “It was not the first time that such an incident had taken place.”
The incident recalls prior episodes in the vicinity. In May, 22 individuals, including seven children, sustained injuries in a reported quadcopter attack in South Waziristan’s Wana tehsil. Roughly a week before that, four children died and five more were hurt in a suspected quadcopter drop in North Waziristan’s Mir Ali tehsil. Military officials subsequently stated that forces had been “falsely implicated” in the latter case, ascribing it to the prohibited TTP.
Copyright © 2021 Independent Pakistan | All rights reserved
