Taliban attack schoolboys in Pakistan, 4 killed

PESHAWAR – Taliban militants attacked a group of boys on their way to school in northwest Pakistan yesterday, killing four and wounding three, a government official said.

In the distant southwest, militants set fire to eight container trucks carrying supplies for Western forces fighting al Qaeda and the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan.The high school students were attacked in Orakzai ethnic Pashtun tribal region in the northwest apparently because they were minority Shi’ite Muslims. Taliban militants are from the majority Sunni community and attack Shi’ites as part of their strategy to fight the government.’They opened … fire on the students and we have reports of four deaths,’ said Khaista Gul, an official in the administration of the Orakzai region.Tribesmen retaliated after the attack and killed at least two militants and wounded several, said residents of the area near the region’s main town of Kalaya.Government aircraft attacked militants in a village, 30 km east of Kalaya, killing six of them and destroying four hideouts, said another government official, Sajjad Khan.Pakistani Taliban have stepped up attacks across the northwest since mid-2007, raising concern about the nuclear-armed US ally’s stability.Pakistani militants also support the Afghan Taliban and many cross over the largely unguarded border to fight US-led foreign forces there.In the main southwestern city of Quetta, militants attacked eight trucks loaded with supplies for Western forces in a drive-by shooting, the second such incident in the region in recent weeks.’The trucks were parked at the roadside when militants came in a car and opened fire, setting all of them on fire,’ a senior police official said.Pakistani security forces have had some success against the Taliban in parts of the northwest this year and the chief of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, was killed in a US missile strike early last month.Orakzai is a stronghold of Hakimullah Mehsud who has been appointed the new Pakistani Taliban chief.Pakistani and US officials said the militants were in disarray after Baitullah was killed and attacks appeared to tail off though they have been picking up again.Twenty-two Pakistani border guards were killed in a suicide bomb attack at the main border crossing with Afghanistan in the Khyber region, another Hakimullah stronghold, on August 27.Pakistani security forces launched an offensive against militants in Khyber last week and nearly 120 insurgents have been killed, according to officials.Independent casualty figures are not available. – Nampa-Reuters