Guardian: Survivors in a Peshawar hospital
On Tuesday, news agencies reported that up to 71 civilians were killed in a weekend air strike by Pakistani jets in the Khyber tribal agency. However, the Pakistani military has yet to confirm the deaths as civilian casualties, and military spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas emphasized that the army “had intelligence that militants were gathering at the site of the strike.”
On Tuesday though, the story was confirmed by an anonymous government official, who said authorities “had already handed out the equivalent of $125,000 in compensation to families of the victims,” a development further backed by The Guardian, which cited residents who had received the money.
News agencies interviewed two survivors of the air strike today, who were in a hospital in Peshawar, and stated that most people were killed “when they were trying to rescue people trapped by an earlier strike on the house of a village elder.” One survivor, identified as Khanan Gul Khan, told the Associated Press, “This house was bombed on absolutely wrong information. This area has nothing to do with militants.” Khan’s statement echoed Ikramullah Jan Kukikhel, a tribal elder who spoke to The Guardian by phone, noting, “The Kukikhel [tribe] are with the government. We have never joined the Taliban or any other fundamentalist group. We are normal people who just want peace for the country.”
Reading this horrific news today, a few points struck me. First, 71 people are not just a statistic of this war, the unavoidable collateral of conflict. If the news coverage is accurate, this was avoidable. The fact that it occurred doesn’t just reflect “poorly on the security apparatus’ intelligence-gathering capacity,” as Dawn’s editorial suggested. It also is a testament to how little we know about this war, (see Huma Imtiaz’s fantastic related piece) and how counterinsurgency is more than a trendy term to throw around. Yes, “the battle for hearts and minds” has become a cliched and overused term, but the Pakistani military must understand that denying air strikes and civilian casualties may blindfold the larger public, but it undermines their campaign with the people directly impacted by their actions.
At the end of the day, the local residents in the military’s area of operations are the ones who must be ensured safety and protection. Giving the victims’ families compensation, or “blood money,” does little more than bandage a wound. It cheapens the gravity of a tragedy. And it is certainly not enough.
CHUP! - Changing Up Pakistan 
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It get worse. Rahimullah Yousufzai, says in Jang:
http://thenews.jang.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=234000
“Even when reports emerged that all or most of the 63 people slain in the bombardment were civilians, the military authorities kept quiet. In fact, the military has refused to concede civilian casualties, or ‘collateral damage’ in all its offensives todate in Swat and rest of Malakand division and in the tribal areas.”
“The irony of the situation is that three sons of late Hameed Khan, whose three-storey house was bombed by the jet-fighters in Sra Vella in the first strike, are reportedly serving in Pakistan’s security forces. They were on duty when their house was bombed and five to six of their family members including women and children were killed.”
I read that in the AP too – that many of the victims actually had family in Pakistan’s military. Several sources contend that the area is not Taliban-related at all. Very very sad.
That’s how extremists are born. Pathan tribes are revengeful people. So the government should be ready for retaliation of some kind. No idea why the situation is becoming complexed day by day.
The question is can these tribes be taken into confidence regarding the Pakistan military’s war against miscreants?
I think the point is that these tribes have been cooperating with the military’s operations in FATA. As Tariq noted above, families of some of the victims have been serving in the security forces. And lest we forget that many from this area and NWFP/K-P have been recruited into the Frontier Corps.
I think the government has to be more responsible than the other party. For example in india after the killing of 70 crpf men by maoist, it has not taken the assistance of the airforce as they know very well the collateral damages would be very high. Even the airforce has also mentioned the same.
Further in case of india atleast these maoist is not its own creation. When there has been days when these talibans were state sponsored, suddenly asking them to change the direction and using force would never go in a long way. That is the reason, public pakistan feel that the administration is just acting at the whims of usa.
Please read the pakalert.wordpress.com article on the removal of bhutto from power in seventies. Article says that “all power house of pakistan was bought out by cia”
A terrible loss of life and a huge tragedy for those Pakistani families. No excuses are good enough for this sort of thing happening. It’s appropriate for the PA to have pressure to learn from this mistake (not to sweep it under the carpet) and to be seen to be helping and sympathetic to the plight of the victims. PA needs to communicate what it’s doing in this regard. However PA is right to be going after terrorists.
Such collateral damage must be avoided at all cost and it’s not just a mere figure but human lives. Tactical strikes in such regions must be carried out with extreme caution. For I will let a militant target go if we are not sure rather than killing a dozen civilians. Human life must be valued just because our media teams do not reach there does not mean that we go berserk.
Money is no real compensation to the people who get killed in attacks such as this. A permanent remedy should be found for them. Terrorism needs to be curbed from the root and the only way is makin education so cheap and handi that recruiting by Taliban is seized. Only then these attacks and war can stop.
Counterinsurgency or COIN is certainly a term thrown around a lot and you hit the nail on the head by saying it’s “trendy.” This is definitely an unfortunate incident and could have been avoided. It always surprises me that the military tries to hide this kind of stuff though. With so much media attention, how do they expect to do that?
About getting help from the tribes, many have been assisting the military since they are no friends of the TTP or the Afghani Taliban. They’re ordinary citizens who want peace and security. (And I would argue are even wary of seeking revenge.) And because of that the United States has increased drone strikes. Despite all the protest around them, they in fact are very useful since they are so targeted. And they are generally supposed to the avoid incidents like this one from happening by avoiding the civilian populations that militants tend to use as a cover. This is a great report that highlights how effective drone strikes have been: http://counterterrorism.newamerica.net/sites/newamerica.net/files/policydocs/bergentiedemann2.pdf.
I’m actually interested in the culture of blood money and the history of doling out compensation to victims of tragedies – does anyone know more about how (or if) it relates to the culture or even Sharia?
Also Fahad Desmukh wrote a great piece on the media’s obstacles in covering this war: http://thirdworldism.posterous.com/16214908
This is what makes military operation not an appropriate way for sorting out terrorism.
This war reminds me of Combodia which became victim in America’s war against Vietnam.
Is this war against terrorism or war for terrorism?
We need to listen sane voices and let our culture and religion sort out this issue.But unfortunately for power and money,we have been playing for someone else that too for their vested interest.
Found this video interview with the tribal leader of Kukikhel tribe, the target of the air strikes. Really interesting:
Counter insurgency measures need to well planned and well executed, the policy of reactionary military offensives are not likely to succeed as often we are merely treating the situation and not addressing the factors that contributed to that situation. Religious extremism is still rampant in our society and thus militants have ample grounds to find new recruits. We need to identify the factors that promote violence and invest more in social reforms for if the needs of citizens are met they are less likely to be influenced by the propaganda.
So Guardian doing the job while our own media is busy in the Shoaib-Sania saga.
What a sad state of affairs. And then they call Imran Khan a Taliban sympathiser.