Militants Kill Five in Pakistani Tribal Region

Assailants on Sunday rained rockets on a Pakistani army base, killing four people, and assassinated the son of a tribal elder who had helped track down Islamic militants, Pakistani intelligence officials said. Two suspected militants were killed at a checkpoint, a security official said.

In recent days, Pakistan has renewed an offensive against suspected Al Qaeda-linked militants in its largely lawless tribal zone along the Afghan border.

Militants on Sunday stepped up their resistance. On a road in South Waziristan, masked gunmen killed the 20-year-old son of Malik Khadin, a prominent elder who led a tribal militia in a search for guerrillas last year, an intelligence official said on condition of anonymity.

In North Waziristan, 20 rockets were fired before dawn on a base in Mir Ali, a town east of Miran Shah, another intelligence official said. A soldier and three government employees died sleeping in their barracks, and four others were injured, the official said.

Five other rockets landed in two villages nearby, damaging some homes, he said.

At a roadblock east of Miran Shah, security forces fatally shot two tribesmen who wouldn’t give up their AK-47 rifles while their pickup truck was searched, a security official in Miran Shah said on condition of anonymity.