Category: Terrorism

KARACHI, July 25: A series of blasts rocked the southern town of Sukkur late Wednesday as militants rammed an explosive-laden vehicle into a compound of Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency, security officials said.

At least nine people were killed, including five attackers and four agency officials in what was an unprecedented attack in the otherwise peaceful town.

Police said the attackers detonated two bombs — one outside a police building and a car bomb outside the ISI office in the town, located around 500 kilometres from Karachi, the main city of Sindh province.

A police official said apparently a suicide bomber first blew himself up in front of a police building and then a second suicide bomber detonated the explosive-filled car outside the ISI office.

The terrorists had seized control of one government building, sparking a shoot-out between the militants and security forces in the high-security Barrage Colony area.

The exact number of casualties was still unclear as TV channels put the death toll between seven to ten but there was no confirmation from the hospital.

Sources told Dawn that four agency officials were among the dead including ISI’s deputy director Maj Zeeshan, Azizullah, Asghar Ali and Nazeer Ahmed. There was no official confirmation of the death of the agency officials.

Major General Rizwan Akhtar, head of the paramilitary force, Sindh Rangers said that all attackers had been killed and the ISI compound had been cleared of the militants.

“All three militants who seized the compound have also been killed and the building completely cleared of terrorists,” said Akhtar.

He said the front wall and gate of the ISI office had been blown away by the impact of the first blast.

A senior police official said it appeared to be “an organised terrorist attack”. Militants have launched such sophisticated attacks before, but Sukkur has been traditionally immune from such violence.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack so far.

In May 2009, a suicide attack outside a police building next to the local ISI headquarters in the eastern city of Lahore killed 24 people.

In November that year a powerful car bomb ripped through ISI’s headquarters in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing 10 people and destroying part of the fortified building.

A month later in the central city of Multan two suicide attackers fired at soldiers while driving a truck bomb past security checkpoints in an attempt to approach the local office of the ISI.

In another elaborately planned attack last year, militants attacked Kamra, a major airbase, and damaged an aircraft.

The year before, Pakistani Taliban gunmen attacked a naval base in Karachi, the country’s biggest city. Ten military personnel were killed in the 16-hour assault.

In 2009, they attacked the national army headquarters in the garrison town of Rawalpindi, close to the federal capital.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has strongly condemned the attack, which he said resulted in the “loss of precious human lives and injured many”.

—DawnNews correspondent Asif Mehmood contributed to reporting.

 

 

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — One of Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari’s most trusted aides was killed in a suspected suicide bombing in the volatile port city of Karachi on Wednesday as he stopped his armored vehicle to buy some fruit, police said.

Pakistan has suffered a spate of attacks since Nawaz Sharif was sworn in as prime minister last month, underscoring the challenges facing the nuclear-armed nation in taming a Taliban-linked insurgency.

A senior police officer in the city said Bilal Shaikh — Zardari’s security chief, who was always spotted next to the president during public appearances — and two others were killed in a prosperous area of eastern Karachi.

“It seems that the suicide attacker walked up to Bilal Shaikh’s vehicle and blew himself up outside the front passenger seat of the vehicle where Shaikh was seated,” the officer, Raja Umar Khattab, said. About a dozen people were wounded. A police escort was accompanying Shaikh’s sport-utility vehicle at the time of the attack.

No one asserted responsibility for the blast, which took place on the eve of the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins in Pakistan on Thursday.

The latest wave of attacks has ended a period of relative calm after a May election that marked Pakistan’s first transition between elected civilian governments. In early June, Sharif won a parliamentary vote to become premier for the third time.

Last weekend, at least five people were killed when a bomb ripped through a busy restaurant street in the eastern city of Lahore, Sharif’s home city. On June 30, at least 28 people were killed in the southwestern city of Quetta when a suicide bomber struck in a largely Shiite neighborhood.

Shaikh, who had survived an assassination attempt near his home in Karachi about a year ago, used to change his routes several times while traveling around one of Pakistan’s most violent cities.

Like Zardari, he belonged to the Pakistan People’s Party, which had been in power before the May election. Taliban-linked militants had previously targeted the secular party.

Zardari and Sharif issued separate statements condemning the attack, a private TV channel reported.

It was the first attack in Karachi since mid-June. At least nine people were killed when a bomb targeting the convoy of a senior judge exploded in the old city area. The judge survived. The Pakistani Taliban asserted responsibility for that attack.

— Reuters

QUETTA, June 30: At least 28 men and women of Shia Hazara community were killed and 60 others injured in a suicide blast in the Aliabad area of Hazara town on Sunday night. “A suicide bomber blew himself up near a barrier close to Ali Ibn-Abu-Talib Imambargah,” DIG (Investigation) Syed Mobin Ahmed told Dawn.

The proscribed Lashkar-i-Jhangvi has claimed responsibility for the attack. A spokesman for the group who identified himself as Abubakar Siddique told a private TV channel that his group had carried out the attack in the Hazara town.

At least nine women were among the dead.

Sources said that an unidentified man on a bicycle tried to enter the area and when people standing near the barrier tried to stop him he blew himself up.

The blast occurred at the Balkhi Chowk which is near to the Imambargah.

Capital City Police Officer Mir Zubair Mehmood told reporters that prayers were being held inside the Imambargah when the blast took place.

He said the target of the bomber was Imambargah but he could not reach there because people responsible for security of the Imambargah stopped him at the barrier.

He said the head and parts of the bomber’s body had been found.

Eyewitnesses said a large number of people, including women and children, were at the place at the time of the blast.

Press photographer Saeed Ahmed told Dawn that human flesh and limbs were lying all over the place.

Soon after the blast, the sources said, security personnel rushed to the blast site and cordoned off the area. They did
not allow even rescue personnel to enter the area for fear of a second blast.

Hazara town resounded with gunfire after the explosion.

Two hand-grenades were found at the blast site which the suicide bomber reportedly carried.

The injured and the bodies were taken to the Bolan Medical College Hospital and the Combined Military Hospital.

Hospital sources said the death toll could rise because at least 10 of the injured were stated to be in serious condition.

Several nearby buildings and vehicles parked in the area were badly damaged by the blast.

This was second bomb attack in Hazara town over the past five months.

The previous blast, caused by explosive in a water-tanker on Feb 16, killed about 100 people and left over 200 injured.

Balochistan Governor Mohammad Khan Achakzai and Chief Minister Dr Abdul Malik Baloch condemned the blast and expressed grief over the loss of lives. They expressed sympathy with the bereaved families.

Official sources at the Chief Minister’s Secretariat told this reporter that the chief minister who was in Islamabad on an official visit, decided to return to Quetta after coming to know about the attack.

“The chief minister has directed officials concerned to ensure adequate medical treatment of the injured,” they said.

DAWN.COM | Syed Ali Shah

QUETTA/ISLAMABAD, June 15: At least 23 people, including 14 female students and the deputy commissioner Quetta, were killed Saturday in multiple bomb and gun attacks by militants in the capital of insurgency-hit Balochistan province.

Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan told reporters at a press conference that several parts of the Bolan Medical Complex, taken under siege by terrorists, have now been cleared by security forces.

An operation was being carried out by security personnel to free the Bolan Medical Complex from heavily armed militants who had taken over parts of the hospital and were reported to have taken several people hostage.

A large number of patients and doctors were trapped inside the complex when heavily armed militants took the hospital under siege.

According to security forces, parts of the hospital have been cleared while four gunmen are still believed to be inside the complex.

Nisar confirmed that 35 hostages had now been freed by security forces.

“According to our official reports, four terrorists have been killed in the operation while one suspect has been arrested from outside the hospital,” said the interior minister.

The interior minister said further details of the ongoing operation to clear the hospital would be announced later.

Condemning the earlier attack on Ziarat Residency, he said that orders have been issued to re-build the historic monument of the country. Chaudhry Nisar also revealed that outlawed Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) has claimed responsibility of the rocket attacks in Ziarat.

Nisar said the total death toll from the attacks in Quetta has now risen to 22, including four terrorists, four Frontier Corps personnel, Deputy Commissioner Quetta Abdul Mansoor Khan and 14 female students of the Sardar Bahadar Khan Women’s University.

The female students were killed earlier when an improvised explosive device ripped through a bus inside the university campus.

“The bomb exploded just when female teachers and students gathered inside the bus around 3 pm to proceed for Quetta city from the university,” CCPO Mir Zubair Mehmood said.

The CCPO said that most of the victims were female teachers and students. He said the bus caught fire after the powerful blast.

The injured were shifted to the Bolan Medical Complex, where half an hour later sounds of explosions and gunfire spread panic and chaos among the patients and doctors.

Several people were trapped inside the complex for hours as security personnel engaged in a grueling operation against the militants.

Security forces have now cleared most of the complex and evacuated the civilians, although CCPO Mir Zubair Mehmood said it might take another three hours to confirm that the hospital was clear of all terrorists.

Meanwhile, the Balochistan government has officially announced to observe a “day of mourning” on Sunday.

Earlier Saturday, militants attacked the Quaid-e-Azam residency in Ziarat with hand grenades, destroying the historical monument where the founder of Pakistan Mohammad Ali Jinnah spent his last days.

A policeman was killed in the attack on the Jinnah’s monumental residency.

Officials had confirmed that most of the old memorials inside the monument were destroyed, with historic photographs of the founder burnt to the ground in the resulting fire.

It was unclear if the attack on the Quaid’s residency in Ziarat was related to the later attacks in Quetta.

Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Senator Pervez Rashid assured full support to the Balochistan Government in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Balochistan.

Speaking to media representatives in Islamabad, Rashid strongly condemned the attacks. He said that those involved in these terrorist acts were the enemies of Pakistan and Balochistan.

He said that the entire nation was with the people of Balochistan at this critical juncture.

Islamabad, May 22: It was a cold, misty evening in Karachi some months ago. At a friend’s place, Zahra Shahid Hussain was trying to convince a motley group of PTI enthusiasts and critics from different social and professional backgrounds on why Imran Khan showed promise like no other political leader and why the PTI must be given a chance to run the country.

The criticism we offered was harsh at times. She took it with great poise and tried her best to answer the questions raised against the party, its politics and the choices made by her leader. She was receptive, gentle and accepting – qualities rarely found in PTI neo-converts. They usually neither take any criticism in good stride nor try to respond to your comments logically. They counter you with hate mails, write against you and snub you privately or publicly. Zahra Shahid Hussain was different – an elderly, mature, self-assured and polite woman. Her cold-blooded murder outside her residence in Karachi reflects the barbarity of the perpetrators and our growing insensitivity as a people towards such gruesome acts of violence. My heart goes out to her family and friends. May she rest in peace.

While the PTI leadership in Karachi was a little more cautious and asked for immediate investigation and demanded the killers be arrested, Imran Khan was swift in apportioning blame on the MQM chief Altaf Hussain. His justification was Hussain’s earlier threats to the PTI’s demonstrators who complained of rigging and asked for a fresh round of balloting in some polling stations in Karachi. Khan’s statement came on the eve of the re-election on a select number of polling stations in NA-250, the constituency where the polling process was challenged by his party. The MQM had already rejected the ECP’s decision and boycotted the re-polling while demanding that it should be done across the constituency. The PPP and the JI had also boycotted the process for different reasons.

The MQM leader was incensed after he was blamed for being responsible for Zahra’s murder. He was also unhappy with the local MQM leadership for letting that happen. As a consequence, the workers of the party roughed up the local leaders. The party then decided to hold protest demonstrations against Khan and the PTI. Tensions have escalated in Karachi and the two parties are at daggers drawn. The MQM says that the protests will be peaceful in nature. However, the politics of Karachi tells a different story if you take stock of what has happened on the streets and in the neighbourhoods of the city over the past 25 years. Since he is also a British citizen, British authorities had already received thousands of complaints about Altaf Hussain’s incitement to violence in a speech made just after the elections – even before the murder took place.

In fairness, no one can be charged of a crime unless proper investigation is carried out. However, there are lessons to be learnt by both the MQM and the PTI from the tragic murder of Zahra Shahid Hussain. The MQM is still perceived to be a party that takes to violence if its wish and will are not followed by all concerned. No doubt it has a popular base but the realisation has to come sooner than later that it is increasingly impossible to coerce the electorate, influence the electoral process by force or keep getting the number of seats that defy the changes that have taken place over the years in both demography and political opinion in Karachi and Hyderabad.

On top of that, the MQM chief makes indefensible statements from time to time and its second-tier leadership keeps busy for weeks in contextualising and clarifying what has been said. If there are no good or bad Taliban, there is no good or bad violence either. If violence in the name of faith or sect has to be rejected, violence in the name of ethnicity or political difference cannot be accepted either – even for short-term ideological or political gains.

Zahra Shahid Hussain could have been killed by a reckless criminal or any third force but the MQM has to reflect on why it has always been blamed for such acts by its political adversaries. The party has so much ammunition in stock and there is much circumstantial evidence from the past to support these assertions. The liberal, plural and inclusive politics of the MQM and the initiatives it has taken to serve its constituents suffer a huge setback by its political tactics rooted in the late 1980s and 1990s. It is time a party as big and influential as the MQM comes of age. It is time for its leadership to realise that their clout increases across Pakistan if their image changes. Their image changes if they change their old tactics.

For the PTI, the death of one of their veteran leaders, someone who believed in the party from day one and did not opt for it after being rejected by other political forces, or after the October 2011 public meeting in Lahore, is a great loss. She is the first victim of violence from among the PTI leadership. It is time that the party leadership, its workers and supporters understand what it means to be hit by death and violence.

For instance, in case of the ANP, rather than blaming the victims and holding them responsible for their own suffering, the PTI rank and file needs to realise what happened to Bashir Ahmed Bilour, Mian Iftikhar Hussain’s son and more than 700 party leaders and workers who were killed in the last five years, including more than 100 during the election campaign and on election day. Likewise, when Ali Haider Gilani, the former PPP prime minister’s son, was kidnapped and his two aides shot down in broad daylight just two days before the general elections, the response from PTI’s supporters on social media was callous, calling the entire incident a political stunt.

When Imran Khan said – before the elections – that militants should not kill political workers and bomb political rallies but wait for the PTI tsunami to come and sweep away the political forces they dislike, imagine how an ordinary worker belonging to the ANP or the PPP would have felt. If he had let out the statesman in him, Khan would have rather clearly said that all parties must get a level playing field and no party should be threatened and kept out of the campaigning race. Like the MQM condemns faith-based and sectarian oppression and persecution but does not shun its own coercive methods, the PTI has come down hard on the MQM while being soft and apologetic to the TTP.

Violence – religious or political, in any form or for any reason – has to be condemned. Violence begets violence and spares no one in the end. Those who think they can be saved live in a fool’s paradise. Here, I remember the famous lines of Martin Niemoller, the anti-Nazi German pastor and theologian:

“First they came for the communists/and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist/Then they came for the socialists/and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a socialist/Then they came for the trade unionists/and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist/Then they came for the Jews/and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew/Then they came for the Catholics/and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Catholic/Then they came for me/and there was no one left to speak for me.”

Email: harris.khalique@gmail.com