Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Deadly attack in Pakistan
ISLAMABAD — Pakistan was reeling Tuesday after an overnight assault on a police training college in the southwest that officials said had killed at least 61 people, most of them cadets.
The attack, carried out by three militants wielding guns and explosives, also wounded 120 people at the college outside Quetta, the capital of the restive province of Baluchistan. The militants struck late Monday and battled security forces for several hours before they were killed. Two detonated suicide vests, and the third was shot, said Sarfraz Bugti, Baluchistan province’s home minister.
The Aamaq news agency, which acts as a news wire for the Islamic State, posted a picture of three men holding guns and wearing ammunition vests who it said were the attackers. The Islamic State had claimed responsibility for another recent attack in the Quetta area, an August suicide bombing that killed dozens of lawyers.
However, Pakistani officials had earlier blamed Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a banned militant group affiliated with the Taliban, for the assault on the police college. After the Islamic State claimed responsibility, a senior security official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the news media, said the Islamic State had “outsourced” the attack to Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.
The attack began at 11:30 p.m. Monday, Bugti said, with three militants shooting and killing a police guard at the watchtower before storming into the academy, located on the city’s outskirts.
There initially were conflicting police and military statements about the number of attackers involved. About 700 cadets, trainees, instructors and other staff members were inside the academy when it was attacked, Bugti said.
Once inside the academy grounds, Pakistani media said, the gunmen headed straight to the dorms housing the cadets and trainees and opened fire, shooting indiscriminately. Some of the cadets jumped off rooftops or through windows to try to escape.
“They were rushing toward our building, firing,” one cadet told Pakistani Geo TV news channel. “We rushed for safety toward the roof and jumped down in the back of the building.”
Another recruit, his face covered in blood, told the station that the gunmen shot at whomever they saw. “I ran away, just praying God might save me,” he said.
After the attack, Pakistani forces tightened security around the academy and Quetta hospitals where the wounded were taken. Footage aired on local television stations showed ambulances rushing out of the main entrance of the academy as fire engines struggled to put out fires set off by the explosions from the attackers’ suicide vests.
Most of those being treated at the city hospitals had gunshot wounds, and some were injured jumping off the rooftop of the cadet housing.
“This war isn’t over,” said Pakistani Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan. “The enemy is weakened but not eliminated.”
Security forces were put on high alert across Pakistan, and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and the army chief, Gen. Raheel Sharif, said they would visit Quetta.
Baluchistan is home to a decades-old separatist insurgency, and Taliban militants maintain a presence in Quetta and many other parts of the province, which borders Afghanistan and Iran. Anwar ul-Haq Kakar, a spokesman for the Baluchistan government, blamed Afghanistan for the attack on the police college.
“All such attacks have been managed from across the border in Afghanistan,” he said. “Hostile intelligence agencies of neighboring countries are directly responsible for terrorism in Pakistan.”
Kakar said some of the wounded were in critical condition and that the death toll could rise. “We are investigating the failure of law enforcement agencies,” he said.
Baluchistan’s chief minister, Nawab Sanaullah Zehri, said intelligence reports days earlier had indicated that an attack on Quetta was imminent. He suggested that security preparations in the city itself had led the militants to target the college, which is about 9 miles from the city.
“Security was already on high alert, and maybe that is why they have targeted the police training center on the outskirts of the city,” Zehri said.
One of the wounded cadets, Qasim Ali, said the attack began late Monday night as they were getting ready for bed. “Suddenly we heard gunshots,” he said by telephone from a hospital.
“We ran toward the hall door to close it,” Ali said. “I was wounded in my chest and left leg when the attacker threw an explosive device inside the hall.” He said he took cover under a bed and lost consciousness.
“I wish we’d had enough guns,” Ali said. “The terrorists could have been killed easily before they could kill us.” Cadets ordinarily do not keep weapons with them during training.