13 killed in raid near troubled Pakistan town

Tank (Pakistan), May 31: Suspected Islamist militants attacked the house of a senior government official in a village in northwestern Pakistan and killed 13 people, police said today.

The attackers firing rocket-propelled grenades and rifles forced their way into the fortress-like home of Pir Aurangzeb in a village near the troubled town of Tank yesterday.

''We could hear the rattle of guns and explosions in our office,'' said village police chief Sanaullah Khan Marwat. ''It was a big attack and a large number of militants were involved.'' Aurangzeb, a senior official with the government-run power utility, was killed in the attack along with five of his relatives and seven guests.

One of Aurangzeb's brothers is an Islamic cleric while another is a political agent, the top government official in a tribal region near the Afghan border.

Police were investigating whether they were the target of the attack. Neither brother was in the house at the time.

Violence has increased in parts of northwestern Pakistan over the past year. Some analysts see this as evidence of ''Talibanisation'', the spread of militant influence from remote tribal regions on the Afghan border to more developed, populous areas.

Militants angered by Pakistan's support for the U.S.-led war on terrorism have killed many government officials in recent years in the tribal regions.

Tank, where Islamist militants are active, is the gateway to the South Waziristan tribal region on the Afghan border, a hotbed of support for al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Militants killed two paramilitary soldiers in a suicide bombing and another in an ambush near Tank on Monday.

Reuters>