Islamabad, Feb 29: Opposition senators walked out of Parliament on Sunday to protest the shooting deaths of 13 people by security forces in a remote tribal region of Pakistan, scene of a recent military operation to nab al-Qaida suspects. Troops fired on a minibus that failed to stop Saturday at a roadblock in tribal South Waziristan, outraging residents of the semi-autonomous region and prompting the government to announce an investigation into the killings.

Eleven people died at the scene, and two died of their injuries late Saturday, officials said. Two other people were injured. According to residents, some of the dead were Afghan refugees. "Either it was an error of judgment or a planned act and there was no justification for it," Sen. Khursheed Ahmed of the hardline Islamic coalition Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal said after walking out of the Senate with a dozen other lawmakers. "They were not terrorists. They were civilian people."

Pakistan's military conducted a counter-terrorism operation last week near the region's main town of Wana, the fourth in the past two years. The rugged area near the border with Afghanistan is a possible hiding place of Osama bin Laden, but none of the 25 arrested suspects were believed to be senior al-Qaida figures.

Bureau Report