On January 13, the United States launched a terror raid on Occupied Pakistan, murdering at least eighteen human beings, including fourteen members of the BahktPur family.
There will be no CNN interviews with grieving family members. No cousins and neighbors will tearfully tell you that little Hussain drove his mother (also murdered) nuts asking questions about everything, always with a follow-up “why?” No one will show you Sadiqa’s remarkable drawings of birds, flowers, her brothers and sisters, you will not be told that Nadia Bibi wanted to be a teacher, and loved to make her little brothers “play school,” that Ameer could make any vehicle go, that Tahira’s embroidery was famous for miles around, that Zahid could imitate a chicken so accurately that he used to fool the whole family all the time, even Grandma Noor, who always had room in her lap for one more, always had one more story to tell about the old days, always had an answer for Hussain’s invariable “why?
Maybe none of that is true. None of the victims are considered important enough for CNN, or any other news organization to go to Damadola and ask. Oh, they are in Damadola, but they will not ask about the victims, their producers will not instruct them to prepare heart-rending stories of their lives, to make them real people to you, so that you get to know them, mourn them, and feel appropriate rage at the barbarous and brutal entity that blew them to pieces, little arms and heads and legs all over the place to be collected.
There will be no mention of any witnesses being treated for shock, no one smoothing out the skirt of a doll’s dress, voice breaking as they tell you that Sadiqa received this doll as a gift for her tenth birthday and took it everywhere, that Tahira embroidered the dress with the same artistry as if it were a wedding dress for a princess.
These are not, after all, Israeli victims of a suicide bombing in a pizza parlor, not the families of US gunmen killed in Iraq.
Even the headline in the Frontier Post says “18 Tribesmen Killed”.
Pakistan, it is said, will complain. Call in the Ambassador. They have also dutifully lobbed tear gas at the eight thousand or so “tribesmen” who dared to protest the terror attack on their little home town.
At least they’re just bombing the provinces, it’s not like there are little arms and feet and grandma’s laps lying in the streets of Islamabad or Karachi. Yet.
Yet for all the private sighs of relief in the drawing rooms of the “educated class” in their elegant homes, all the whispers of thank God it is only tribesmen, there is something else simmering under the fine broadcloth western-style shirts and silk kameezes, behind dupattas embroidered with gold threads.
Maybe Americans can understand this if they imagine for a moment that a foreign country bombed a village in deepest Appalachia. Just hillbillies. People who are the butt of jokes on comedy shows, whose accents and customs are burlesqued almost unconsciously to make a comedic point.
But once that foreign country is in the US and bombing those people, shredding their bodies, the soft flesh of their children’s bodies, leaving it all there in the rubble of what were their rustic little mountain cabins for the neighbors to pick up and sort out, hey Dwayne, ain’t that thar’n Homer’s head? Ya’ll put’t in that sack over yonder then, cause this here’n’s already got some o’ Charlene in’t.
At some point, inside the gated communities and across the wide suburban lawns inside the gracious homes where the soccer moms and their professional business casual wearing spouses sip cappucino and set aside the New York Times crossword for when the croissants are ready, pausing a moment to contemplate the headline “18 Mountaineers Killed,” somewhere under the cashmere twinsets and J. Crew polos, something whispers, “they were Americans.”
In the coming days, as there have been on past occasions when the US has launched its terror raids into Waziristan and environs, slaughtering more “tribesmen,” there will be, as there have been, various very feisty editorials and strongly worded statements in the Pakistani press, deploring the slaughter, deploring the occupation, and as much as they dare, the occupiers, the terrorists, the bestial horde, the native puppet Musharaf.
There will even be some angry young men who vow to avenge the murders, the atrocity, just as one might find some angry young American young men who would burn with similar sentiments on seeing the headline “18 Mountaineers Killed.”
Because even though these victims were merely humble tribesmen from a small, remote village that does not have any big buildings or shopping malls or TV stations, they are Pakistanis.
And even more importantly to many young men and women far, far from Pakistan, they are human beings.
May God accept their martyrdom.
The fourteen fatalities have been confirmed by ISPR, as briefed by Maj Gen. Shaukat Sultan.
The bombardment by the Allied forces, fell on Damadola Burkanday area of tehsil Mamoon in Bajaur agency at 3:00 am PST, completely flattening the homes of BakhtPur, Muhammad Rahim and Bacha Khan.
According to local eyewitnesses, fourteen members of BakhtPur family along with four others died, due to indiscriminate bombing. The dead included eight children, and four females. The dead included, 9-year old Nadia Bibi, 10-year old Sadiqa, 9-year old Tayyeb, 7 year old Zahid ullah, 5-year old Hussain Nawaz. Others included 20-year-old Ameer Muhammad, 25-year-old Nazir Muhammad, 50-year Noor Pari, 40-year old Shahi Badan, 30-year-old Qari Saeed, 30-year-old Tahira Bibi, and others. Some of the dead were unidentified.The locals reported that the allied warplanes violated the Pakistani airspace from Afghanistan territory by 19 kilometers and targeted the said homes. The resultant explosions rocked the area far and wide, shattering windows.
The sources also reported reconnaissance flights spying on the area for the past few days.
The assistant Political Agent of the Nawagai region, Abdul Qayum acknowledged blasts heard at 0300 hrs, but said that since the reported area is located far away, no immediate details were available.
A team has been dispatched by the officials for further investigations. Bajaur Agency is located parallel to the Kunar Province of Afghanistan.It is feared that the dead could well exceed 18. In the past about eight persons had died due to such bombings and the government had lodged strong protests to the American Administration.
The Bajur attack happened few days after Pakistan lodged protest with U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan about firing in the North Waziristan tribal area on Saturday night that had killed eight people.
Bajur border Afghanistan’s eastern Kunar province, where Taliban and Hekmatyar-led Hizbe-e-Islami are active.nerdified link (site is down today, here is alternate link to Dawn story with much of same info.
