Khan in call for protests
QUETTA (Pakistan): More than a dozen people were killed in an overnight battle between Pakistan paramilitary troops and militants who stormed their base and took families hostage, the army said.
“Well equipped” fighters assaulted a Frontier Corps compound in Muslim Bagh, Balochistan province, and captured three families in a residential block, the military said.
Fighting raged from Friday evening until Saturday morning and “the complex clearance operation involved hostage rescue operation”, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said in a statement.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack but ethnic Baloch separatist groups have for decades waged a rebellion against the state in the southwestern province, frequently targeting security forces.
The Pakistan Taliban is also active in the region.
“The terrorists had not even spared children” in their hostage-taking, ISPR said. All six militants who breached the compound were killed, it said.
Seven “sons of the soil” – a term generally used for state security forces – were killed but one individual was a civilian, ISPR said.
Six more people, including a woman, were wounded.
A funeral service for some of the men killed was held in Balochistan’s provincial capital Quetta on Saturday.
Separately on Saturday, the ethnic separatist Baloch Liberation Army claimed to have staged an attack on security forces guarding an oil and gas survey team further south in Balochistan’s Kalat region.
Pakistan has witnessed a dramatic uptick in attacks since the Afghan Taliban surged back to power in neighbouring Afghanistan in 2021.
The assaults have been focused on regions abutting Afghanistan, and Islamabad alleges some are being planned on Afghan soil.
In January, a suicide bomber linked to Pakistan’s Taliban blew himself up in a mosque inside a police compound in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing more than 80 officers.
Meanwhile, former prime minister Imran Khan called for nationwide “freedom” protests yesterday, after his brief arrest and detention this week triggered deadly unrest.
The one-time cricket superstar – who has been tied up in dozens of legal cases since being ousted from power in April last year – was freed on bail on Friday after his detention was declared unlawful by the Supreme Court.
Enraged by the arrest, supporters set fire to government buildings, blocked roads and damaged property belonging to the military, which they blame for Khan’s downfall.
“Freedom does not come easily. You have to snatch it. You have to sacrifice for it,” he said in an address broadcast on YouTube Saturday night.
He called for supporters to hold protests “at the end of your streets and villages” across the country yesterday evening for one hour starting at 5.30pm local time.
After five days of tumult across Pakistan, yesterday morning was quiet, but Khan has also pledged to return to campaigning on Wednesday for immediate elections.
For months, the Pakistan Tehreeke-Insaf (PTI) party leader has waged a campaign of defiance against the military.
His arrest on Tuesday came just hours after he was rebuked for claiming senior officials were involved in an assassination attempt against him last year.
Pakistan’s military has ruled the country off and on for nearly half of its 75-year history, and continues to wield power over the political system.
“The army chief’s actions have made our military bad. It is because of him, not because of me,” Khan said from his home in Lahore, although it was unclear whether he meant the serving chief, or his predecessor, whom Khan has held responsible for his ouster.
He previously told reporters that “one man, the army chief” was behind his arrest.
But Khan distanced himself from the attacks against the military’s installations at the protests, denying his party workers were involved and calling for an independent investigation into the violence.
The army, which denies the accusations made by Khan, on Saturday warned against attempts to create “misperceptions” against the institution.
At least nine people died in the unrest last week, police and hospitals have said.
Hundreds of police officers were injured and more than 4 000 people detained, mostly in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces, according to authorities.
At least 10 senior PTI leaders have been arrested since the protests began, one of Khan’s lawyers said.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, the head of a shaky coalition, on Saturday warned that those involved in “facilitating, abetting and perpetrating” the violence should be arrested within 72 hours. “Those who demonstrated anti-state behaviour will be arrested and tried in anti-terrorist courts,” he said during a visit to Lahore.
Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah has repeatedly vowed that police will re-arrest Khan, who remains wildly popular ahead of elections due in October.
The Islamabad High Court ruled that Khan should be given protection from arrest until today. Khan won the 2018 election on an anti-corruption campaign, voted in by an electorate weary of decades of dynastic politics.
Independent analysts say he was brought to power with the support of the military, before falling out with the generals.
The political crisis has simmered for months, with Khan attempting to disrupt the coalition government by dissolving two provincial parliaments he controlled and agitating for early elections.
The country now seems primed for a “progressively ugly showdown in the days and weeks to come”, read an editorial in Dawn, the country’s leading English language newspaper.
“None of the leaders, political or institutional, who are invested in this tug-of-war appear ready to take a step back,” it said.