Missiles Strike City in Pakistan

A guerrilla ambush killed three Pakistani soldiers Tuesday and raised the death toll for the security forces to 32 after more than a week of fighting near the Afghan border.

Thousands of Pakistanis have marched to protest the offensive ordered by President Pervez Musharraf and his cooperation with the U.S.-led war on terrorism. Violence has been growing throughout the region as Pakistani forces seek to root out suspected foreign militants and tribesmen accused of sheltering them.

Tuesday night, three missiles hit Peshawar, creating huge, simultaneous explosions in parts of the Northwest Frontier Province’s capital and sparking panic among the city’s residents.

Police said one missile landed in the parking lot of their headquarters, another struck near the office of the World Health Organization and the third fell in a residential area.

A father and son reportedly suffered shrapnel injuries and were taken to a hospital. No other casualties were reported.

Even as the missiles hit Peshawar, progress was reported in talks between government officials and Pushtun elders in the rugged South Waziristan region, where the Zalikhel tribe agreed to expel foreign militants from the area and assist the government in recovering 16 missing paramilitary troops.

A 22-member Zalikhel delegation held negotiations with administrators of the South Waziristan region Tuesday.

A delegate in the city of Wana said by phone that a 12-member committee was formed to organize a search to track down the militants and the missing security personnel.

“Now we are optimistic about a cease-fire, and the tribe will fully cooperate with the government,” he said.

Monday afternoon, militants ambushed a troop convoy in South Waziristan, killing 13 soldiers and wounding 20, the military confirmed Tuesday. In Tuesday’s ambush, an army post in another tribal region to the north came under rocket attack. Three soldiers died and four were wounded.

Even as some tribesmen agreed to cooperate with the government, fighting spread to Pakistan’s Central Kurram tribal region, which is close to the Tora Bora mountains where U.S. forces waged a bloody battle in 2001 in a failed attempt to capture Osama bin Laden.

Attackers fired rocket-propelled grenades into a military post in the Tari Tang area of Central Kurram, an official statement said Tuesday. Four soldiers were wounded in the predawn attack, three of them seriously. The blast destroyed a room in a veterinary center that had been converted into an army post.

It is the first time the Pakistani army has been attacked in Central Kurram, where thousands of troops have been stationed next to the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar. Guerrilla loyalists and other allies of Afghanistan’s deposed Taliban regime continue to operate in the area.

The Central Kurram administration gave members of the local Moosazai tribe 24 hours to turn in the attackers or face punishment under the 1901 Frontier Crimes Regulation. Pakistan’s government has invoked the colonial-era law to destroy houses and shops of tribesmen who resist orders to cooperate.

Meanwhile, protesters continued to demonstrate against military operations in the entire tribal region and the Northwest Frontier Province, where well-armed Pushtun tribes have resisted central authority for centuries.

In the Bajaur and Khyber tribal regions, about 10,000 tribesmen carrying Russian- and Chinese-made assault rifles reportedly demonstrated against the offensive.