Lower Dir killings confirms presence of US troops in Pak

WASHINGTON - Wednesday’s devastating bomb blast in which three US soldiers along with nine others, including four girl students were killed in Lower Dir has confirmed the presence of US Special Operations troops in Pakistan.

According to sources, the killed US soldiers were part of a 100-member strong special American military training unit which was dispatched to Pakistan in 2008 to raise a 1,000-member strong well-trained paramilitary commando unit to launch guerrilla operations against al-Qaeda and the Taliban extremists in the tribal regions.

The Pakistan government has been denying any presence of US commandoes on the country’s soil, fearing severe reaction from the opposition parties, but the latest incident certainly proves that there are American ground troops inside Pakistan.

In the beginning, the American military trainers confined themselves to training compounds due to security concerns in Pakistan. However, they had now started accompanying Pakistani troops on special guerrilla operations against the Taliban and al-Qaeda militants, The Dawn reports.

The three slain US soldiers were travelling in a convoy with troops, journalists and officials to the opening of Koto Girls’ High School when the roadside bomb exploded.

The school was blown up in January 2009 and rebuilt with the help of the US Agency for International Development (USAID). Dozens of girls’ school were destroyed in Lower Dir area in 2008-2009 by extremists led by Maulana Fazlullah, the Swat chapter chief of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

However, President Obama’s Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke while condemning the Lower Dir blast has rejected reports of presence of US troops inside Pakistan.

Holbrooke also rebuked the TTP’s claims that the killed US officials belonged to the controversial private security, Blackwater. (ANI)