A horrific suicide bombing attack obliterated a grand meeting (‘Jirga’) in Orakzai Agency yesterday when a 20 year old guy drove an explosive-laden, white truck to the Jirga site and blew it away, along with himself.

The blast sent tremors through the area, killing 113 people and leaving about 300 injured. The attack comes as a vindictive measure from Taliban who are being hunted by tribesmen for the last few weeks.

Taliban forces in Orakzai Agency had occupied a significant area of the agency, displacing local population from their houses and land, especially in the late September this year. Fighting back this transgression, the local tribesmen started organizing their own combat teams to hunt Taliban and capture them.

On October 6, 2008, tribesmen launched a successful attack on Taliban, capturing several of them and handing the more dangerous ones to the government authorities. This left Taliban forces restricted to a defined area within the agency, checking their freedom to move about the place and carrying out their terrorist activities. The recent blast is a terrorist vendetta on local tribesmen.

The Jirga that experienced the terrifying blast was called by the Alikhel tribe, the dominant in the area by its population, and had over 1600 participants from all of the 18 tribes inhabiting the Orakzai Agency. The purpose of calling the Jirga was planning a major operation against Taliban forces in the agency to clean the territory of terrorists.

Taliban have launched the suicide attack to intimidate the tribes and scare them into inactivity against Taliban. Most of the deceased in the Jirga blast were also from the Alikhel tribe. Meanwhile, tribesmen have vowed to persist in their struggle against the terrorists and not let them be intimidated by such acts of violence.