Pakistani military probes US drone crash

MIRANSHAH, Pakistan: Pakistan's army said Wednesday it was investigating the crash of a suspected unmanned US spy plane near the Afghan border amid claims by tribesmen they had shot it down.
 
Separately seven soldiers and 45 Taliban militants were killed in another frontier tribal region, as military operations continued in the wake of the deadly weekend bombing of a top Islamabad hotel.

In a further sign of the unrest gripping the country, a suicide bomber blew himself up near a military vehicle in the southwestern city of Quetta on Wednesday, killing a girl and injuring 13 people.

The drone crash late Tuesday in the South Waziristan tribal zone, a haven for Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants, came as tensions grew between Washington and Islamabad over US missile strikes and incursions on Pakistani soil.

"A surveillance unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), while flying over the Pak-Afghan border yesterday night, crash-landed on this side of the border... apparently due to malfunctioning," a Pakistani military spokesman said in a statement.

"The wreckage of the UAV has been recovered from the site by the security forces personnel and the matter is under detailed investigation," the spokesman said.

The statement did not say who the drone belonged to but security officials said it was an American aircraft.

The Pentagon said it had no report of any crash, while the CIA declined to comment. "We have no reports of any loss of DoD (Department of Defence) drones," said Lieutenant Colonel Mark Wright.

Pakistani officials said troops had not fired on the drone and that intelligence operatives had no reports of any gunfire when the vehicle was shot down.

But residents in the town of Angoor Adda, where the spy plane crashed, insisted tribesmen shot it down.

"This pilotless plane was flying over Waziristan unchecked overnight when it was shot down at low altitude by residents of the area near the Afghan border," Malik Mirgul, a tribal elder in Angoor Adda, told AFP.

Tribesmen had picked up the felled drone but troops then retrieved it, officials said.

Public anger has mounted in Pakistan over an increase in US missile strikes in recent weeks, and the subject came up during talks in New York on Tuesday between US President George W. Bush and Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari.

Pakistani tribesmen have come to fear the sound of US drones flying over their villages near the Afghan border, knowing they often presage deadly missile attacks targeting Islamist militants.

Residents said unmanned aircraft resumed flights over South Waziristan and neighbouring North Waziristan on Wednesday morning. They also launched sorties over the wreckage of the crashed drone.

In North Waziristan, tribesmen perched on hills opened fire on another spy plane that flew low over the militant hot-spot district of Mir Ali, residents and local government officials said.

The crash came two days after Pakistani officials said troops opened fire to repel two US helicopter gunships that crossed into North Waziristan.

South Waziristan was the scene on September 3 of the first officially acknowledged operation by US forces on Pakistani soil, in which 15 people were killed.

Also in South Waziristan, Taliban militants blindfolded and publicly executed three alleged murderers in the main town Wana.

In the Bajaur tribal region further north, seven Pakistani soldiers and 25 Taliban militants died in the latest clashes while another 20 insurgents were killed in bombing raids on guerrilla tunnel networks, officials said.

Pakistan is already on high alert following a suicide truck bomb attack on the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad on Saturday, which killed at least 60 people and wounded more than 260.