PARACHINAR (Kurrum Agency), April 11: At least 15 people were killed when a lashkar attacked Jilamai and Chardewal villages in the Lower Kurram Agency and set houses on fire, eyewitnesses told Dawn.

A large number of people were injured and some of them were taken to the Alizai hospital. Villagers ran for their lives after flames enveloped their homes. Security forces reached the villages and opened on rioters. Several houses in the villages have been completely gutted.

Residents alleged that the assailants were trained militants from the nearby North Waziristan Agency.

An official in Alizai confirmed five dead and six wounded in the attack on the villages.

An eyewitness said that 15 bodies, including that of a woman, had been counted on the outskirts of the villages.

Officials said that 25 people had been killed and scores others wounded in heavy fighting between rival groups in different areas of the Kurram Agency on Tuesday night and Wednesday. The political administration has confirmed 35 died in the riots.

The Parachinar town was under curfew for the sixth consecutive day on Wednesday. City’s hospitals continued to receive wounded. Situation in Sadda town was also alarming and the local hospital received a large number of injured people.

Three people were killed and six others wounded when troops fired artillery rounds near Sadda, where some combatants refused to vacate their positions, an official said. Political Agent Sahibzada Mohammad Anis said that a ceasefire had been brokered between rival groups in Sadda-Balshikhel, Malikhel-Boshara and Alizai-Bagan on Wednesday. Reports of sporadic firing between the people of Alizai and Bagan were also received.

The officials said that a jirga of elders from Hangu district, headed by former district Nazim Pir Haider Ali Shah and Syed Hussain Ali Shah, arrived in the area and brokered a truce between rival groups in Alizai and Sadda areas.

In Shalozan Tangi, abutting on the Afghan border, four people were killed. In Shoblan village, one woman was killed and two children were wounded when their house was hit by a rocket. A rocket hit a house in Almsher village killing a woman.