Airstrike kills nine in Pakistan tribal region

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – In what could herald an intensified U.S. campaign against Islamic insurgents in Pakistan’s tribal areas, a suspected American missile attack killed at least nine people near the Afghan border, local officials said Wednesday.

It was not immediately known whether any senior insurgent figures were among the dead, but local officials in the South Waziristan tribal agency said those killed included “foreigners” – often used to mean al-Qaida operatives and commanders from outside Pakistan.

American military officials in Afghanistan and the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad disavowed knowledge of the missile strike, which tribal sources and Pakistani military officials said was carried out late Tuesday. However, such attacks against al-Qaida and other significant militant figures that are carried out by CIA-operated drones in the area are rarely acknowledged publicly by either Pakistani or American officials.

Adding to the air of crisis, a late-night suicide strike outside a police station in the eastern city of Lahore killed at least five people as crowds gathered to begin celebrating Pakistan’s independence day today.

The incidents, coupled with a recent bout of intense fighting in Bajur, another tribal area abutting the Afghan border, came as Pakistan wrestled with a growing battle over demands that President Pervez Musharraf step down or face impeachment.

In a boost to the impeachment drive by the ruling coalition, a provincial assembly in southern Sindh province Wednesday overwhelmingly approved a nonbinding resolution calling on the president to agree to a vote of confidence by regional and national lawmakers or relinquish his post. Two other regional parliaments approved a similar resolution earlier this week.

Musharraf, a longtime U.S. ally who until late last year was also chief of Pakistan’s military, has resisted attempts by the ruling coalition, made up of former opposition figures, to oust him.

Addressing a pre-independence day ceremony Wednesday night, Musharraf made no direct reference to his own predicament but accused unnamed foes of “conspiracies” against state institutions.

The escalating political tensions in Pakistan paralleled the most serious outbreak of fighting in months along the Afghan frontier. Thousands of refugees have fled amid battles between government forces and militants holed up in the arid, rugged border zone, where the writ of law carries little force.

The Pakistani army said it killed about 25 militants in airstrikes Wednesday.