Rockets aimed at U.S. forces in Pakistan

PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- For the second time in two weeks, a rocket missed U.S. special forces hunting Taliban and al-Qaida fighters in Pakistan's frontier tribal belt, a local official said Saturday.

The target was a vocational school in Miran Shah where about seven Americans are thought to bunk while working with Pakistani troops in the semiautonomous region along the Afghan border. U.S. officials haven't confirmed their presence at the building.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official in Miran Shah said two rocket launchers had been hooked up with timers in woods less than a half mile from the school and were aimed at the building.

The first rocket fired about 10:25 p.m. Friday and hit a sports complex 150 to 200 yards from the school, causing little damage and no injuries, he said. The second was set to fire at 2:25 a.m. Saturday but was found and defused.

The official said it was not known who was behind the attack.

On May 1, a rocket was fired at the same school but struck a building about 300 yards away. No one was hurt.

The next day, people in the area found pamphlets from a previously unknown group calling on Muslims to "stand up against the army of Jews and Christians." The pamphlets also said the killing of Pakistani troops and officials assisting the Americans was "justified."

In other developments:

In Afghanistan, about 30 U.S. commandos working with 200 Afghan soldiers raided 10 houses before dawn Friday, taking nine men into custody on suspicion of aiding Taliban and al-Qaida members hiding in Kandahar, police and witnesses said Saturday.

Attempts to reach spokesmen at the U.S. air base at Kandahar or the main coalition base in Bagram were not successful.

Thirty-six Afghans flew home from Indonesia on Saturday, marking the beginning of a mass repatriation of some 600 Afghans stranded in that Southeast Asian country when they tried to get to Australia to seek political asylum.

In August, Australian Prime Minister John Howard stopped the influx of Afghans, who reached Australia on rickety boats with the help of smugglers.

More than 500,000 Afghan refugees have come home in the past two months, most of them from neighboring Pakistan and Iran.

More than 200 Pakistani prisoners were flown home after a northern Afghan leader released them from the squalid Shibergan prison, where they had been held for nearly six months.

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