MIRAMSHAH (North Waziristan), May 22: Five tribesmen were killed in an attack by US helicopters in the Lawara Mandai area of the North Waziristan agency on Saturday night, officials said. Another 20 shells fired by the coalition forces from Afghanistan’s Paktika province landed near Lawara Mandai, but did not cause any damage, eyewitnesses said.

Director-General of Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) Maj-Gen Shaukat Sultan confirmed that several shells and rockets fired by the coalition troops had landed near Lawara Mandai. “We don’t know about the casualties,” the ISPR chief told Dawn on phone on Sunday. He said the matter would be taken up with the coalition authorities.

He said that the coalition commanders on the other side of the border had informed their Pakistani counterparts about the operation in the area and certain rounds had landed in the Pakistani territory on Saturday night. “There is report about collateral damage,” he said, adding that he had no information about casualties in the area.

Maj-Gen Sultan said that the army troops had already been deployed in the area along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. However, authorities in Miramshah, the agency’s administrative headquarters, said that five men of the Madakhel Wazir tribe were killed after two US helicopters had fired rockets. The names of the victims could not be ascertained.

They said that the US helicopters had intruded into Lawara Mandai up to one kilometre, and two fighter jets flying at a high altitude also violated Pakistan’s airspace.

Sources said that the Pakistani security forces did not react to the attack. The army has recently set up two base camps in Ghulam Khan and Lawara Mandai areas of the North Waziristan agency. A senior military official said last week that the border had been sealed to stop cross-border movement of suspected militants.