July 28th 2008
Update On Pakistan Missile Attack
L
ast night I headlined a report of a missile attack in the Afghanistan/Pakistan border area, saying it sounded like the sort of operation designed to take out Taliban leadership.
We have a confirmation of sorts … from the Taliban:
A missile apparently fired at a religious seminary in Pakistan’s South Waziristan tribal region early Monday killed seven people, a local Taliban leader said.
The pre-dawn attack was carried out at a ‘madrassa’ at the border region of Azam Warsak at 3 a.m., Maulavi Nazeer said.
The missile attack also injured three others, he said.
Locals said that the missiles struck seminary belong to a local cleric Maulana Jalail, who is considered to be linked with Taliban.
Locals believe that the missiles were fired from Afghanistan to hit a house in the Pakistani area near the border with Afghanistan.
The army spokesman confirmed the incident but did not say if it was missile strike or a bomb blast.
He said the coalition forces exchange intelligence with Pakistani forces before their actions. (Global Security/IRNA)
Al Jazeera adds:
Residents said the house where the missiles struck belonged to local tribesman Malik Salat and that suspected pro-Taliban fighters used to stay there.
Several villagers said they heard jets approaching from Afghanistan before the strike.
Still waiting for something official … and that’s interesting. In some earlier attacks, there were immediate outraged charges of civilian deaths and mutterings from the DoD about investigations. Reaction to this attack is muted … as if we hit what we wanted to hit.
SCRATCH John Edwards off the list of potential vice-presidential candidates. The former White House contender, who had been hoping to get the nod from Barack Obama, is in the midst of a full-blown sex scandal.
