WANA, May 29: Suspected militants on Sunday killed a key tribal ally of the government in the restive South Waziristan tribal region along with his cousin and bodyguard, witnesses and a senior government official said. Ex-senator and former federal minister Faridullah Khan was ambushed a short while after he had left South Waziristan’s regional headquarters Wana after attending a media briefing by GOC, Wana, Maj-Gen Niaz Khattak.
Two others accompanying the chief of Ahmadzai Wazir tribe in the whole of South Waziristan were wounded. One of them is stated to be in critical condition, official sources told Dawn. Officials said that Mr Khan, who had played a pivotal role in opening up the Shakai Valley, the last bastion of foreign militants, to the Pakistan Army, had been killed by militants.
“He had no feud. The man had played a key role in helping out troops to enter Shakai and break the back of foreign militants. He was an obvious target,” the source said of the 51-year-old former senator from Waziristan. Accounts provided by witnesses and official sources of the incident said that the former senator had made a stopover at Kariwam on Jandola and Tank road for lunch and had returned his escort thinking that he would be safe while on the main road.
Little did he know that only half an hour later, while taking a diversion beneath a collapsed bridge, he would be confronted by four masked men waylaying the dirt track.
“The masked men had parked their car right in the middle of the dirt track. They blocked Faridullah’s pick-up truck and opened a volley of bullets. They were waiting for him. Apparently, they knew that Faridullah was heading this way and had been keeping a tab on his movement,” the official source said.
The incident occurred at around 2.45pm. Faridullah, his cousin Abil Khan and guard Mir Baj Khan were killed on the spot. Habibullah and Shah Jee, the other two who accompanied the former senator in his four-by-four pick-up truck were wounded, one of them seriously.
Significantly, Faridullah’s assassination came a day after the GOC Wana claimed at a media briefing in Shakai that peace had been restored to South Waziristan and foreign militants eliminated.
His claims fly in the face of reports emanating from the region, which speak of deteriorating security situation and the return of militants to the region.
There has been a spate of targeted killings of pro-government tribesmen and suspected spies particularly after the government concluded peace deals with militant commanders in the Waziristan tribal region.
Late Faridullah had lent his huge brick-walled house in Shakai to the army to house their offices and run operations as well as developmental activities in what had hitherto been an inaccessible area for the government.
The GOC Wana and other military officials would regularly hold tribal jirgas. Militants had long been holding the late chief of Ahmadzai Wazirs responsible for the losses they had suffered at the hands of security forces.
He had also been instrumental in arranging for the surrender of 44 local wanted militants to the government from the Shakai Valley who were later allowed to go free on Faridullah’s own guarantees and requests.
