Pakistan

Wanted tribal leader killed after being traced

Pakistan’s army killed a renegade tribal leader accused of sheltering al-Qaida fighters, tracing him to a mud-brick compound via a satellite phone and then leveling the building in a helicopter assault, officials said Friday. Six other people also died.

“We were tracking him down and he was killed last night by our hand,” Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan told The Associated Press in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital.

A helicopter fired a missile at the hideout of Nek Mohammed near Wana, the main town in South Waziristan, near the Afghan border.

The army got its break late Thursday when a satellite phone intercept tracked Mohammed to the home of another tribal leader, according to a security official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Afghanistan

Militias take provincial capital; at least 10 dead

Warlords overran a provincial capital in central Afghanistan, officials said Friday, forcing the governor to flee in the latest burst of infighting in this war-fractured nation.

The attack, in which 10 people were reportedly killed, highlights the challenges U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai faces in trying to extend his writ to the countryside. It also was further evidence of slipping security ahead of key elections scheduled for September.

Fighters armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades seized Chagcharan, the main town in remote Ghor province 350 miles west of Kabul, on Thursday, a leader of the offensive and a government official said.

Gov. Mohammed Ibrahim fled to the western city of Herat, leaving his deputy and a group of nominally loyal militiamen and police to regroup.