At least 35 security personnel were martyred, and over 100 others injured as terrorists stormed a police training centre on the edge of the provincial capital late Monday night.
Three terrorists opened entered the New Sariab Police Training College, some 13 kilometres away from Quetta city. The terrorists headed straight for the hostel where around 250 police recruits were sleeping.
Balochistan Home Minister Mir Sarfaraz Ahmed Bugti told reporters assembled at the
site early Tuesday that the sprawling compound had been attacked by three militants equipped with suicide jackets, revising down an earlier estimate of “five to six” assailants.
“They first targeted the watch tower sentry, and after exchanging fire killed him and were able to enter the academy grounds,” he said. “At least 20 were killed but this figure isn’t final – we’ll confirm it in the morning,” he said, putting the provisional number of injured at 65.
He added, “Frontier Corps’ Quick Responce Force (QRF) wing responded along with Anti-Terrorist Force (ATF) and [Pakistan Army’s] Light Commando Battallion…one terrorist was killed while two of them exploded”.
Terrorists belonged to Lashkar-e-Jhangvi
Major General Sher Afgan, chief of the paramilitary Frontier Corps in Balochistan, which led the counter-operation, said “the attack was over in around three hours after we arrived.”
He added that the militants belonged to the Al-Alimi faction of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi militant group – which is affiliated with the Pakistani Taliban. “They were in communication with operatives in Afghanistan,” he said. The group itself has not claimed the attack.
Bugti said the compound was housing some 700 recruits at the time of the attack, hundreds of whom were rescued.
The area was plunged into darkness when the counter-offensive was launched, while security personnel created a cordon and ambulances zoomed in and out, taking the injured to hospitals. Military helicopters circled overhead.
Two FC personnel gunned down in Quetta
Bugti said the law enforcers cleared the operation within four hours, adding that “99% the operation is complete but the forces will remain in the centre till daylight”.
The training college is situated on Sariab Road, one of the most sensitive areas of Quetta. While militants have been targeting security forces in the area for almost a decade, the training college has come under attack in 2006 and 2008.
The casualties were driven to different hospitals of the city where a state of emergency was declared. Provincial authorities, in the meantime, also made arrangements to fly those with critical wounds to hospitals in Karachi.
Chief Minister Nawab Sanaullah Zehri said that the terrorists attacked the police centre, which is located on the edge of Quetta, after they failed to hit a target in the provincial capital where security was on high alert following intelligence information about a possible attack three or four days back.
The attack came a day after separatist gunmen on a motorcycle shot dead two coast guards and a civilian and wounded a shopkeeper in Gwadar.
In August, a suicide bombing at a Quetta hospital claimed by the Islamic State group and the Jamaatul Ahrar faction of the Pakistani Taliban killed 73 people, including many of the city’s lawyer community who had gone there to mourn the fatal shooting of a colleague.
Balochistan is also a key region for China’s ambitious $46 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) infrastructure project linking its western province of Xinjiang to the Arabian Sea via Pakistan.
Pakistan blames India for fuelling terrorism in Balochistan in an attempt to sabotage CPEC. A senior officer of Indian navy, Kulbushan Yadav, was arrested from Balochistan earlier this year.
QUETTA, Oct 9: A day after gunmen shot dead four women from the Shia Hazara community, the Balochistan administration decided to form a joint investigation team to probe into the grisly violence which officials say violates all tribal norms of the province.
A high-level huddle reviewed the security situation following Tuesday’s deadly assault on a bus which was en route to Hazara Town, an overwhelmingly Shia neighbourhood, on the edge of Quetta. Three gunmen riding a bike intercepted the vehicle on Kirani Road in the Podgali area.
Two of them boarded the section reserved for women and shot five women after confirming they were from the Hazara community. Four of them died on the spot while one was injured in the attack which was apparently motivated by sectarian hatred.
Attendees at Wednesday’s conclave included Home Minister Sarfaraz Bugti, Chief Secretary Saif Ullah Chatta, IGP Ahsan Mehboob, DIG Quetta Abdul Razaq Cheema and civil and other military officials. The meeting also decided to improve security arrangements by putting up closed-circuit television cameras in the city. IGP Mehboob updated participants on the investigations.
Meanwhile, Sariab police registered a quadruple murder case against unidentified gunmen. Investigations are under way.
Separately, the Hazara Democratic Party staged a protest outside the Quetta press club against the killing of the women of their community.
HDP Secretary General Ahmed Ali Kuhzad led demonstrators. Participants expressed concern over targeted attacks against their community. Killing women is a violation of tribal and Islamic values which is condemnable, they added.
“We want the government to tell us where did the attackers come from and how did they manage to commit the grisly violence amid heightened security,” Kuhzad said. The Hazara community leaders also criticised the intelligence and security agencies for their sheer failure to preempt the attack.
The protesters called upon the United Nations and rights groups to take notice of the ‘genocide’ of their community in Balochistan.
A top military commander, meanwhile, called for unity among all segments of society to defeat the enemy’s designs.
“We will have to demonstrate unity to defeat our enemy who is hatching conspiracies to divide us,” Lt Gen Aamer Riaz, Commander Southern Command, said during a visit to an Imambargah where he offered Fateha for the victims of Tuesday’s attack on a moving bus.
Lt Gen Riaz visited Nichari Imambargah in Quetta Wednesday to offer condolences to the aggrieved community. He promised that the perpetrators of the cowardly attack would not go unpunished. “They will be brought to justice at any cost,” he added. “Stern action will be taken against those involved in targeted killings of innocent people.”
He called upon all segments of society to maintain unity among their ranks in order to foil the evil designs of the enemy who wanted to divide the society.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 6th, 2016
Suspect in New York and New Jersey bombings spent three weeks in 2011 at Kaan Kuwa Naqshbandi madrassa, source says, amid questions of terrorism links. Ahmad Khan Rahami, the man suspected of placing bombs in New York and New Jersey last weekend, spent time in a religious seminary in Pakistan closely associated with the Afghan Taliban, according to a government official.
The 28-year-old, who was born in Afghanistan but became a US citizen, spent time at the Kaan Kuwa Naqshbandi madrassa on his two visits to Pakistan, a security official working for the government of Balochistan province told the Guardian.
Rahami spent three weeks in 2011 receiving “lectures and Islamic education” at the school in Kuchlak, a dusty cluster of villages 20km north of Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan, he said.
Kuchlak is a well-known hub for the Taliban, the Islamist movement that has waged a 15-year insurgency against local and Nato forces in nearby Afghanistan. It is home to many madrassas, the seminaries intimately linked with the Taliban, originally a movement of religious students.
US officials have revealed basic details about Rahami’s two visits to Pakistan, the first in 2011 when he spent a couple of months in Quetta and got married and almost a year in 2013 when he also made a car journey to Afghanistan.
But very little information has emerged from inside Pakistan about what Rahami did during his visits.
The government official, who did not wish to be named because he was speaking about a highly sensitive subject, said Pakistani security agencies have tried to “hide all the details of his visits to Quetta” and keep as much information as possible out of the media.
Rahami, he said, also visited other sensitive areas in the province, including Surkhab and Nushki, where former Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansoor was killed by a US drone in May.
Pakistan has long been accused of playing a “double game” with the US, both supporting the Nato counterinsurgency in Afghanistan but also allowing the Taliban to use its territory a vital rear base.
A western expert on the Taliban said Abdul Samad, the Afghan owner of the Kuchlack madrassa, was an important local figure.
“The madrassa is a place where you have multiple Afghan Taliban going there and hanging out in [Samad’s] court, as well as active ISI officers,” he said, referring to the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) directorate, an army-run spy agency.
“Samad is the kind of person who should have been shut down long ago but enjoys a high degree of protection,” he said.
Despite being part of the mystical, Sufi strain of Islam which many hardliners abhor, Samad is highly respected by the movement, he said.
A Karachi-based cleric told the Guardian the school is a sizeable operation, with more than 200 students.
Despite several attempts to reach Samad for comment, the Guardian was unable to make contact with the madrassa.
Although the Taliban’s leadership is often described as the “Quetta Shura” many analysts consider Kuchlak to be the actual command centre for many senior members of the movement.
The Taliban’s white flags have been reportedly seen flying in the town’s graveyards and Shahbaz Taseer, a Pakistani kidnapped by militants in Lahore in 2011 and held for more than four years, was released in Kuchlak in March by the Taliban.
Rahami’s father Mohammad Rahami has said his son had grown increasingly interested in Islamist movements, watching Taliban and al-Qaida videos, and listening to their poetry. Rahami had also showed sympathy towards the Taliban, a former employer said.
Given the Taliban has long avoided entanglement in international jihad, insisting it is only interested in forcing foreign troops out of Afghanistan, it is unlikely Rahami was operating under instruction when he planted his bombs. A notebook found on Rahami when he was captured after a shootout on Monday suggests he may have been inspired by the Islamic State group.
But the claim Rahami attended an important Taliban-sympathising madrassa could be embarrassing for Pakistan at a time the country is under intense international criticism, not least from India which accused Pakistan this week of hosting “the Ivy League of terrorism”.
Anwar-ul-Haq Kakar, a spokesman for the Balochistan government, said that because more than 1 million Afghan refugees live in the province it is “difficult to know what sort of activity is being conducted by some individuals”.
“Filtering out the terrorist influences in such a huge community is a very difficult task,” he said.
Nor could the government be expected to be aware of a US traveller like Rahami who has “deep links in the host community”.
“If he was not spotted by the CIA and FBI or Homeland Security, then this shows that it is really global problem,” he said.
NEW YORK, Sept 18 — Authorities are investigating three incidents — explosions in New York and New Jersey and a stabbing attack in Minnesota — that took place within a 12-hour period on Saturday and sowed fears of terrorism.
Officials said they could identify no definitive links between the disturbances — a bombing that hurt 29 in Chelsea, an explosion along the route of a scheduled race in Seaside Park, N.J., and a stabbing that wounded nine in a St. Cloud, Minn., mall.
But each incident in its own right raised the possibility of terrorist connections, prompting federal and local law enforcement to pour major resources into determining exactly what happened and why.
A news agency linked to the Islamic State claimed Sunday that the suspect in Minnesota, who was fatally shot by an off-duty police officer, was “a soldier” of the militant group, though there was no confirmation of what connection the man may have had.
A claim of responsibility is no guarantee that the terrorist group directed or even inspired the attack, and authorities said they were still exploring a precise motive. The terrorist group made no similar claims about the New York and New Jersey incidents.
In New York, authorities said there was no evidence that the mysterious Saturday-night explosion was motivated by international terrorism, though they confirmed that the bombing was intentional.
“This is the nightmare scenario,” Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) said.
The governor said nearly 1,000 police officers and National Guard troops would be sent to bus stops, train stations and airports, as investigators with the New York Police Department, the FBI, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives worked to identify the person or people responsible for the explosion.
A federal law enforcement official said investigators were still aggressively probing if the New York and New Jersey incidents were related, though the official cautioned that as of Sunday afternoon they had not tied them together definitively.
Those injured in the Saturday-night blast in Chelsea had been released from hospitals by Sunday.
The Manhattan explosion occurred about 8:30 p.m. Saturday in the area of West 23rd Street between Sixth and Seventh avenues, injuring 29 people as it hurled glass and debris into the air, officials said. Surveillance video showed passersby running to get away from the blast, and investigators said they would comb through that and older footage to try to identify those responsible.
Authorities said the explosion was produced by some type of bomb, and they posted on Twitter a photo of what appeared to be a mangled Dumpster or garbage container. Masum Chaudry, who manages a Domino’s Pizza near the scene, said the explosion “shook the whole building” and caused “total chaos.”
Cuomo said, “When you see the amount of damage, we really were very lucky there were no fatalities.”
A short time after the explosion, just a few blocks away, police found another potentially explosive device, which looked like a pressure cooker with wiring, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation. Both that device and the remnants of that which exploded will be sent to the FBI’s lab in Quantico, Va., for analysis, authorities said. Pressure cookers were used in the two bombs detonated at the Boston Marathon in 2013.
Sara Miller, who was at a restaurant two blocks from the site of explosion, said she heard the blast, then saw people scrambling to get away. “I was here on September 11th so I thought, maybe, you know, I was being paranoid … but then I saw people running,” said Miller, 42. “It is a scary time because you never know when it will happen again.”
Officials differed on whether to call the Saturday night explosion an act of terrorism. Cuomo said: “It depends on your definition of terrorism. A bomb exploding in New York is obviously an act of terrorism, but it’s not linked to international terrorism.”
City, police and FBI officials said it was too early to determine any type of motivation, though they insisted they would not shy from labeling the crime an act of terror if it became appropriate to do so.
“We do not know the motivation. We do not know the nature of it. That’s what we have to do more work on,” said New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who shied away from labeling the attack as terrorism.
The incident comes as foreign leaders, including many heads of state, are heading to Manhattan for the United Nations General Assembly. Secretary of State John F. Kerry arrived Saturday, while Obama is scheduled to head to the city on Monday.
This annual meeting — held more than two miles from the site of the explosion in Chelsea — is traditionally a challenging time for New York, as many roads are shut down and the heavy security leads to traffic jams.
Officials said they had already prepared to beef up security, and now they would intensify those efforts.
On the campaign trail, the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates offered varied reactions to news of the incident. As early reports circulated Saturday night, Donald Trump declared that a “bomb went off” in New York City and said: “We better get very, very tough. We’ll find out. It’s a terrible thing that’s going on in our world, in our country and we are going to get tough and smart and vigilant. … We’ll see what it is. We’ll see what it is.”
Hillary Clinton condemned what she characterized as the “apparent terrorist attacks” in Minnesota, New Jersey and New York.
“This should steel our resolve to protect our country and defeat ISIS and other terrorist groups,” Clinton said, using an acronym for the Islamic State. She added, “I have laid out a comprehensive plan to do that.”
Moyed Abu, 28, a manager of OMG, a jeans store on 7th Avenue, said he and two employees were in the store at the time of the blast. Abu said they assumed initially it was construction noise — but immediately saw dozens of people, though not everyone, running in both directions, Abu said.
“I saw that some people started to take pictures,” he said. “In this situation, it’s better to just leave! It’s not safe!”
The Chelsea explosion occurred about 11 hours after a pipe bomb exploded in a Jersey Shore garbage can, shortly before a scheduled charity 5K race to benefit Marines and Navy sailors. No one was hurt.
Officials said that device, too, would be sent to the FBI lab in Quantico, though Cuomo noted the pipe bombs used in New Jersey “appear to be different” than those in New York.
New York Police Commissioner James O’Neill said officials would explore a possible connection between the two cases but noted, “At this point, there doesn’t appear to be one.”
Two law enforcement officials said residue of tannerite — used primarily for making exploding targets for firearms practice — was found in material that had detonated in New York. The officials said a cellphone was used in both the New York and the New Jersey cases.
In another incident Saturday night in Minnesota, a man who made reference to Allah and asked at least one person whether he or she were Muslim stabbed and wounded nine people inside a Minnesota mall. He was shot to death by an off-duty police officer. On Sunday, the Islamic State claimed that the attacker was “a soldier of the Islamic State” and “carried out the operation in response to calls to target the citizens of countries belonging to the crusader coalition.”
A law enforcement official said Sunday that officials were examining all the devices, reviewing surveillance footage and combing through social media. Another official said that there was no clear suspect as of Sunday afternoon but that the investigation was in its very early stages.
“Whoever placed these bombs, we will find, and they will be brought to justice,” Cuomo said.
Some New Yorkers, though, said they felt uneasy waiting. Leonard Glass, 55, who walked 20 blocks from the upper West Side of Manhattan to the site of the explosion early Sunday afternoon, said that no one had taken responsibility for the explosion made it worse.
“I hope this is something else,” he said. “Not terrorism.”
Zapotosky and Wang reported from Washington. Renae Merle in New York and Mark Berman, Ellen Nakashima, Kristine Guerra, Sari Horwitz, Sean Sullivan, Steven Overly, John Wagner and Julie Tate contributed to this report, which has been updated.
Eight years ago, President Obama pledged to wind down the war in Iraq and redouble efforts to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan. “As president, I will make the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban the top priority that it should be,” he said during a campaign speech. “This is a war that we have to win.”
Lasting peace, Mr. Obama said, would depend on not only defeating the Taliban but helping “Afghans grow their economy from the bottom up.” He added, “We cannot lose Afghanistan to a future of narco-terrorism.”
Now, at the twilight of his presidency, these goals are receding further into the distance as America’s longest war deteriorates into a slow, messy slog. Yet despite this grim reality, there has been no substantive debate about Afghanistan policy on the campaign trail this year. Neither Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton has outlined a vision to turn around, or withdraw from, a flailing military campaign.
The war in Afghanistan has cost American taxpayers in excess of $800 billion — including $115 billion for a reconstruction effort, more than the inflation-adjusted amount the United States spent on the Marshall Plan. The Afghan government remains weak, corrupt and roiled by internal rivalries. The casualty rate for Afghan troops is unsustainable. The economy is in shambles. Resurgent Taliban forces are gaining ground in rural areas and are carrying out barbaric attacks in the heart of Kabul, the capital. Despite an international investment of several billion dollars in counternarcotics initiatives, the opium trade remains a pillar of the economy and a key source of revenue for the insurgency.
“It does not appear that the Afghan forces in the near future will be able to defeat the Taliban,” said a senior administration official who spoke about the White House’s appraisal of the campaign on the condition of anonymity. “Nor is it clear that the Taliban will make any significant strategic gains or be able to take and hold on to strategic terrain. It’s a very ugly, very costly stalemate.”
The administration’s current strategy commits the United States to keeping roughly 8,400 troops in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future and spending several billion dollars each year subsidizing the Afghan security forces. The goal has been to coax the Taliban to the negotiating table by beating them on the battlefield, a prospect that now seems remote.
The next American president may be tempted to adopt the Obama policy and hope for the best. That would be a mistake. At the very least, the next administration needs to carry out a top-to-bottom review of the war, one that unflinchingly addresses fundamental questions.
One such question is whether the Afghan Taliban — an insurgency that has never had aspirations to operate outside the region — is an enemy Washington should continue to fight. American forces started battling the Taliban in 2001 because the group had provided safe haven for Al Qaeda, which was based there when it planned the Sept. 11 attacks. While Al Qaeda has largely been defeated, the Taliban has proved to be extraordinarily resilient.
Another question is what it would take to bring the conflict to an end — either by enabling Afghan forces to defeat the Taliban or by bringing them into the political fold — and whether that is something the United States is realistically capable of achieving.
This will not be an easy discussion. A precipitous drawdown from Afghanistan may well have calamitous consequences in the short run, exacerbating the exodus of refugees and expanding the area of ungoverned territory in which extremist groups could once again subject Afghans to despotism and plot attacks on the West.
But American taxpayers and Afghans, who have endured decades of war, need a plan better than the current policy, which offers good intentions, wishful thinking and ever-worsening results.
PESHAWAR, Sept 16: A suicide bomber targeted a mosque in Mohmand Agency’s Anbar tehsil during Friday prayers, leaving at least 24 people dead and 31 others injured, official of the political administration said.
Assistant Political Agent Naveed Akbar told DawnNews that the injured had been transported to hospitals in Bajaur Agency, Charsadda and Peshawar for treatment.
The bombing took place in the village of Butmaina in the Mohmand tribal district bordering Afghanistan, where the army has been fighting against Taliban militants.
Akbar said that the bomber came in as Friday prayers were in progress and blew himself up in the main hall. A curfew was later imposed in the area.
Another local government official confirmed the information.
Shireen Zada, a resident who had prayed at another mosque, said he heard the blast as he was walking home.
“I rushed to the spot and when I went inside the hall there was blood and human remains everywhere and people crying out,” he said.
“I brought my pick-up truck, loaded three wounded and drove them to the hospital in Khar,” Shireen Zada said, referring to the nearest town.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif later condemned the bombing, saying the government would remain steadfast in their fight against extremists.
“The cowardly attacks by terrorists cannot shatter the government’s resolve to eliminate terrorism from the country,” read a statement from Nawaz Sharif’s office.
Jamaatul Ahrar, an offshoot of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), claimed responsibility of the attack.
On September 2, at least 14 people were killed and more than 50 wounded after a suicide bomber attacked a court in Mardan in an assault targeting legal community that was claimed by the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar Taliban faction.
The group has also said it was behind an attack on lawyers in southwest Quetta, which killed 73 people on August 8, as well as the Lahore Easter bombing that killed 75 in the country’s deadliest attack this year.
Pakistani Taliban in particular routinely attack soft targets such as courts, schools and mosques.
The army launched an operation in June 2014 in a bid to wipe out militant bases in the northwestern tribal areas and so bring an end to the bloody insurgency that has cost thousands of civilian lives since 2004. Security has since improved though scattered attacks still take place.
SHIKARPUR, Sept 13: At least 13 people, including five cops, were injured as police foiled two separate suicide blasts during Eid prayers in Shikarpur’s Khanpur tehsil on Monday.
Police sources said four suicide attackers infiltrated Khanpur during Eid prayers.
Two of the attackers targeted an Eid prayer ground where one assailant blew himself up, injuring 10 people, two of whom were policemen. The other attacker fled, police sources said.
Two other attackers targeted an imambargah but were stopped by police at the entrance on account of appearing suspicious. One of the attackers blew himself up after he was stopped by guards for a search, whereas the other was arrested, police said.
Police officer Bahardin Kerio said the second attacker, a would-be suicide bomber, was shot and wounded at the scene, after which the officers arrested him.
Three police officers were wounded in the explosion. Kerio said one of the wounded officers was in critical condition.
He added that there were hundreds of worshippers inside the imambargah at the time.
Those injured in the blast have been admitted to hospitals in Shikarpur for treatment.
Initial interrogation of the arrested attacker, Usman, revealed that the would-be bomber was a resident of Swat’s Qabal tehsil and had studied in Karachi’s Abu Huraira seminary, police sources said.
The sources added that a person named Umer brought the attackers to the imambargah on a motorbike and fled after leaving them there.
Inspector General Police (IGP) Sindh AD Khawaja reached Shikarpur following the incident. The IGP told Dawn AP that the attackers hailed from Swat but were based in Karachi and possibly had links to a seminary there which are currently being investigated.
Following the incident local leaders in Shikarpur led a protest against the attack. The IGP told protesters the police would investigate the case and requested them to lift the blockade.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
Militants trying to disrupt construction of an “economic corridor” linking China with Pakistan’s coast have killed 44 workers since 2014, an official said on Thursday, a rising toll likely to reinforce Chinese worry about the project’s security.
The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is a $46 billion network of roads, railways and energy pipelines linking western China to a deep-water port on Pakistan’s Arabian Sea coast, which passes through Pakistan’s troubled Baluchistan province.
Pakistani officials say they have taken tough measures and that security has greatly improved in Baluchistan, a resource-rich region where ethnic Baluch separatists have battled the government for years. They oppose the CPEC.
Colonel Zafar Iqbal, a spokesman for construction company Frontier Works Organisation (FWO), said all of the workers killed were Pakistani and most fell victim to roadside bombs and attacks on construction sites.
“The latest figure has climbed up to 44 deaths and over 100 wounded men on CPEC projects mainly road construction in Baluchistan, which began in 2014,” Iqbal told Reuters.
In November 2015, the official figure was 25 killed, indicating that the toll has accelerated this year.
The Pakistani projects are part of a Chinese plan to build land, sea and air routes across Asia and beyond boosting trade and winning new markets overseas for Chinese companies as domestic growth slows.
Chinese officials have appealed for improved security in Baluchistan and other regions where projects are planned or under way.
In a bid to address their fears, Pakistan last year created an army division, believed to number more than 10,000 troops, to focus specifically on protecting CPEC projects and Chinese workers.
FWO, which is owned by the Pakistani army, has been awarded the bulk of road-building contracts in Baluchistan and other volatile areas in Pakistan.
Pakistani officials concede security problems remain in Baluchistan, but say the work is progressing ahead of schedule.
About $4.5 billion of the planned investment in the corridor will go towards road infrastructure, with two-thirds of the total $46 billion investment funnelled towards energy projects.
Officials expect the CPEC projects to significantly boost Pakistan’s economic growth above the current 5 percent a year.
Overall security in Pakistan has improved over the past few years but Islamist groups, especially those linked to the Pakistani Taliban, still stage major attacks from time to time.
Last month, Islamists killed 74 people in a hospital bombing in the city of Quetta, the provincial capital of Baluchistan.
(Writing by Drazen Jorgic; Editing by Robert Birsel)
Peshawar, Sept 2: A suicide bomber has attacked a court in the northern Pakistani city of Mardan, killing at least 12 people and injuring more than 50, officials say.
The attacker threw a hand grenade before running into the court area and detonating a bomb, police told the BBC.
Also on Friday, four suicide bombers targeted a Christian neighbourhood near Peshawar before being shot dead.
Both attacks took place in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, and were claimed by Taliban faction Jamaat-ul-Ahrar.
Militants have targeted lawyers in the past, including a bomb attack in Quetta last month that killed 18 lawyers.
That attack was also claimed by Jamaat-ul-Ahrar.
Ijaz Khan, deputy inspector general of police for Mardan district, told reporters three lawyers and two police officers were among the dead at the courthouse.
The suicide bomber attempted to reach the court’s bar room, where several lawyers had congregated – but was shot by police before he could enter, Mr Khan said.
The president of the Mardan Bar Association, Amir Hussain, told reporters he was in a neighbouring room when the blast happened.
“There was dust everywhere, and people were crying [out] loud with pain,” he said.
Lawyers have come under attack because they are “an important part of democracy, and these terrorists are opposed to democracy”, he added in quotes carried by the AFP agency.
Shawwal river (Credit: flickr.com)RAWALPINDI, Sept 1: Director-General (DG) Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Asim Bajwa on Thursday gave an exhaustive rundown of progress made during Operation Zarb-i-Azb.
Zarb-i-Azb commenced on June 15, 2014, after an attack on Karachi’s Jinnah International Airport. The operation which has gone on for over two years is now in its final phase.
“In 2014, the security environment when Operation Zarb-i-Azb started was such that the country faced various instances of terrorism,” the DG ISPR said. “There were 311 IED blasts, 74 attacks, and 26 suicide blasts in 2014.”
“The salient operational guidelines for Zarb-i-Azb were that it would be an indiscriminate operation, it would avoid collateral damage and it would be mindful of human rights,” he said.
________________________________________
Summary of progress made during Operation Zarb-i-Azb
War against terror has cost Pakistan $107bn
North Waziristan, Shawal, Khyber Agency cleared by Army
900 terrorists killed during Khyber I and Khyber II
66pc locals have returned to tribal areas
Daesh designs in Pakistan ‘foiled’, 309 arrested
Over 21,000 IBOs carried out across Pakistan, nearly people 1,400 arrested
536 soldiers killed, 2,272 injured during IBOs
3,500 terrorists killed in IBOs
Afghan govt, Nato forces did not take adequate action against terrorists
Poor deployment of armed forces along Afghan side of the border
Gates to be built at all crossing points along Pak-Afghan border
________________________________________
‘Afghan authorities did not take action against terrorists’
The DG ISPR displayed a map showing what he said was the concentration of terrorists in North Waziristan.
“No one could think of going to North Waziristan. It was the epicentre [of terrorism]. It was home to the largest communications infrastructure,” he said. The origin of most instances of terrorism was North Waziristan, he said.
“After the operation, when we cleared the valley, reaching Dattakhel and were moving towards the border, some terrorists came out from there via Afghanistan and reached the fringes of Khyber Agency.”
“Before we started the operation, Pakistan had informed all stakeholders ─ political, diplomatic and military ─ of the operation. The Afghan president, political govt, military leadership, Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan were all informed of the operation and requested that if terrorists cross the border, they would have to catch them.
“They are your people, you will have to take action against them. But that didn’t happen,” Bajwa said.
‘Killed 900 terrorists during Khyber ops’
“When the terrorists went towards Khyber Agency, we relocated some forces from the North Waziristan operation [to Khyber] and conducted operations Khyber I and Khyber II.”
“We recovered weapons, ammunition, IEDs, explosives, communications equipment, hate literature and discovered tunnels,” he said.
“There was enough explosive material there to carry out five IED blasts every day for 21 years. They could have caused 134,000 casualties with the amount of material we recovered.”
“North Waziristan has very challenging terrain but despite that, our armed forces went there and cleared all their hideouts, caves and tunnels. But Khyber was even more challenging. It has snowy mountains and was home to hideouts from the Afghan war and had a very high density of IEDs.”
The Army killed 900 terrorists during the Khyber operation, Bajwa said, and dismantled the network of terrorists that was threatening areas in the immediate surroundings, such as Peshawar.
‘Shawal is like Switzerland now’
“We started operations in Shawal, where all the terrorists from North Waziristan went. It was their last stronghold and they had nowhere to go after that. The operation went well and we cleared every village, every house, every school and every mosque in Shawal.”
“Shawal is like Switzerland now,” Bajwa claimed. “The residents are slowly returning, but they want the Army to stay on and provide stability and revive the economy. Pine nuts are grown in great quantities there. Terrorists were selling them to fund themselves, but now the locals will benefit.”
‘Daesh in Pakistan planned attacks on Islamabad’s diplomatic enclave’
The DG ISPR said that Daesh ─ another name for the militant Islamic State group ─ would not be allowed to have a presence in Pakistan.
“We created a comprehensive intelligence picture and saw that Daesh was trying to come into Pakistan. They organised themselves into two groups, the Kutaiba Haris (planning wing) and Kutaiba Mubashir (militant wing) and were trying to get local criminal and terrorist groups to join them,” Bajwa said.
“Terrorists were frustrated at the time with all the Intelligence-based Operations (IBOs) going on and tried to change hats. The core group had 20-25 people,” he said. These people were responsible for the attacks on the Faisalabad Dunya office, Lahore Din News office, Express News Sargodha office, and ARY News Islamabad office, he said.
About 309 people who were part of the organisation were arrested, including Afghans and people of Middle Eastern origin. About 157 small freelance groups were also arrested, he said.
Even people who did wall-chalking and graffiti for Daesh in Pakistan for Rs1,000 were also arrested, Bajwa said.
The group had planned to attacks in the capital’s diplomatic enclave, particularly on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and on foreign embassies, consulates and their employees, Bajwa said. They had also planned to target Islamabad airport and prominent public figures.
Border management: armed deployment low on Afghan side of border
There are 18 major crossing points between Pakistan and Afghanistan along the 2,600-kilometre-long shared border, Bajwa said. “We wanted to seal those areas so that terrorists from this side of the border don’t go there and vice versa,” he said.”
“Lots of terrorists who crossed into neighbouring districts in eastern Afghanistan have built concentration camps.”
“After clearing Fata… We began emphasising border management and the Torkham Gate was part of that. There will be proper gates made at all crossing points in addition to immigration staff posts,” the DG ISPR said. He also said hundreds of small posts will be set up where FC forces will be deployed.
“Additional FC wings will be raised, but until that happens, Army troops will provide reinforcement in many areas.”
“Other related agencies, including Nadra, will have staff posts and crossing will only be possible using valid documents on both sides of the border,” he said.
“We have posts along the border and have our own forces reinforcing the Frontier Corps, but the same kind of deployment doesn’t exist on the Afghan side of the border. Because of that void, there is a lot of presence and movement of terrorists there.”
“There will be a lot of patrolling to ensure no one can cross the border illegally. It will take time, but we are moving ahead steadily,” he said.
‘Over 21,000 IBOs carried out across Pakistan’
Intelligence-based operations (IBOs), special IBOs and combing operations have been carried out across the country, Bajwa said. The IBOs targeted terrorists, their facilitators, sleeper cells, financiers and abettors.
Around 2,578 were carried out in Balochistan, 9,308 in Punjab, 5,878 in Sindh and 3,263 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Special IBOs commenced the night the suicide blast at Lahore’s Gulshan-i-Iqbal park earlier this year, Bajwa said. So far, 477 special IBOs have been carried out, with 1,399 people apprehended.
“We have increased the scope with the leads we received… We will continue going wherever we need to without any hesitation,” he said.
‘War against terrorism has cost us $107bn’
The entire nation has borne the cost of the war against terrorism, which tallied up to $106.9 billion, Bajwa said.
During Operation Zarb-i-Azb, 536 soldiers were killed and 2,272 were injured, Bajwa said, whereas 3,500 terrorists were killed.
About 66 per cent of locals have returned to areas badly affected by terrorism. “But it is not enough that we take them back [to their homes]. We have to help them prosper by means of reconstruction efforts, ensure that the areas are better off [than before], create opportunities for livelihood and revive the local economy so that this kind of terrorism doesn’t recur.”
Infrastructural development projects in the region include a 705km road inside North and South Waziristan, a 75km road from Peshawar to Torkham, solar-powered water schemes and the Mirali Tehsil headquarters hospital, the DG ISPR said.
In addition to the above, market complexes, mosques, schools and colleges have also been built in these areas, Bajwa said.
‘Anti-Pakistan slogans will not be tolerated’
Responding to a question about Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief Altaf Hussain’s anti-Pakistan statements, Bajwa termed Hussain a foreigner residing 5,000km away from Pakistan.
“It is unacceptable for every Pakistani if Altaf Hussain raises anti-Pakistan slogans. The government is already taking action on this issue.
“There has been lots of action on the ground against his incitement to violence. People have been caught and action taken… Everything is before you,” Bajwa said.
