Air strikes against Haqqani militants kill 20, officials say

The raids were carried out in the Doga Madakhel area of North Waziristan tribal district

Pakistani officials said jet fighters yesterday killed 20 suspected members of the feared Haqqani network, accused of some of the bloodiest attacks in Afghanistan including a blast that left 57 people dead last weekend.

The air strikes were carried out in the Doga Madakhel area of North Waziristan tribal district near the Afghan border, where the military has been mounting an offensive against Islamist militant strongholds since June.

The military said in a text message to journalists that “twenty terrorists were killed in precise aerial strikes in North Waziristan”, without giving further details.

Two intelligence officials in the northwest said the jets targeted hideouts of the Haqqani network and of local warlord Hafiz Gul Bahadur.

Afghan officials said the Haqqanis, who are aligned with the Afghan Taliban, were behind Sunday’s horrific suicide blast at a volleyball match in the east of the country.

“The dead included seven fighters of Haqqanis while the rest belonged to Gul Bahadur,” one intelligence official said, requesting anonymity. A second intelligence official confirmed that the target of yesterday’s air strikes were the Haqqani network and fighters of Gul Bahadur.

The official said that a local Haqqani commander was among the dead, but his identity had not yet been ascertained.

Bahadur, a prominent local warlord once seen as “pro- Pakistani”, is unhappy with the military offensive in North Waziristan.

US officials have long urged Islamabad to do more to stop the Haqqanis using North Waziristan as a base to target Afghan and Nato troops across the border.

Many believe that Pakistan’s security services see the Haqqanis as an “asset” and maintain close links with them, with one senior US official once describing them as a “veritable arm” of the country’s ISI spy agency.