Pat Dollard | Young Americans

Notice AP doesn’t use the word alleged when they talk about U.S. strikes/attacks …

PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Hundreds of mourners attended funerals Saturday for more than 30 anti-Taliban tribesmen killed in a brazen suicide attack in northwestern Pakistan.

More than 100 people were also wounded Friday when a teenage militant detonated his explosive-laden vehicle near a crowd of about 500 tribesmen, gathered at Ghaljo village to discuss how to evict insurgents from the area, said government official Rehman Khan.

Officials said earlier 22 people were killed in the attack, but Khan said death toll rose Saturday after some of the wounded died in hospitals. Media reports said as many as 50 people were killed.

“According to my information, more than 30 people died in the attack and their funerals were held today,” Khan said, adding residents and elders planned to meet again Saturday to discuss the situation.

Tribal elder Hazrat Noor said the fight against militants would continue. “We are sad over yesterday’s attack, but God willing we will defeat these terrorists,” he said.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari vowed to “wipe out the menace of terrorism and extremism from the society,” according to the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan news agency.

Al-Qaida and Taliban fighters have established bases throughout Pakistan’s semiautonomous tribal regions, where they are said to plan attacks on U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan as well violence in Pakistan.

Pakistan has carried out military offensives against insurgents while also trying to woo various tribes to turn against the extremists. Some pro-government tribes have set up militias to fight insurgents.

But in a sign of U.S. impatience with Pakistani efforts, American forces have stepped up their own cross-border assaults on alleged militant targets.

The U.S. is suspected in at least 11 missile strikes on the Pakistan side of the Afghan border since mid-August, killing more than 100 people, most of them alleged militants, according to an Associated Press count based on figures provided by Pakistan intelligence officials.

The United States rarely confirms or denies the attacks, which Pakistan’s military and civilian leaders have criticized as violations of the country’s sovereignty.

“We want them (the United States) to realize that these attacks are destabilizing the situation, and they are not helping them or Pakistan,” Pakistan foreign ministry spokesman Mohammed Sadiq told The AP. “They are helping the terrorists.”

The strikes are unpopular among many Pakistanis and used by critics and Muslim conservatives to rally support in their campaign to unseat the country’s broadly secular, pro-U.S. government.

(AP)