Toll rises to 14 in Taliban bombing
Blast ripped through a van travelling through FATA
Aroadside bomb targeting a minivan in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal region yesterday killed 14 people, a local official said, raising an earlier reported death toll of nine killed. The attack was claimed by a breakaway Taliban faction.
The blast ripped through the van travelling through a predominantly Shiite region of the Kurram tribal area, which borders Afghanistan, said Arif Khan, a tribal administration official in the town of Parachinar. The area has long been the scene of sectarian violence.
Shahid Ali Khan, a senior regional Pakistani official, said militants planted a roadside bomb in the Kurram Agency in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).
“When the passengers were coming, they detonated the remote-controlled bomb,” said Khan, who is the assistant political agent for Kurram Agency in FATA, which borders Afghanistan.
Seven-hour siege
Five women and four children were among the 14 killed, while 10 people were wounded in the explosion. With few adequate medical facilities in the area, a Pakistani army helicopter evacuated the wounded to a nearby military hospital.
Jamat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway Taliban faction, said it was behind the attack on the Shiites.
Pakistani Taliban and other militant groups often target Shiites whom they consider to be heretics. The Daesh group has also claimed several recent attacks in the country.
In Karachi, paramilitary forces raided an apartment following a tip that militants were hiding there, police officer Aurangzeb Khattak said.
After a seven-hour siege, three militants, including a woman, blew themselves up inside the apartment. The explosion also killed a 5-yearold while a fourth militant was killed trying to flee the scene. n a pitched battle that began late on Monday evening and lasted until early yesterday morning, Paramilitary Rangers killed five suspected militants, including a woman and an infant, officials said.
Four soldiers were injured in the encounter in Urdu Bazar, officials said.
An official handout said the Paramilitary Rangers arrested a suspect from Itehad Town, a slum in the western part of the city that is considered a hotbed of militants.
During investigations, the alleged militant disclosed information about a hideout where his accomplices were living, in an apartment near Urdu Bazar, a congested and centrally local residential and commercial district.
The Rangers raided the house at about 7.15pm.
Passer-by hit
Finding no way to escape, the alleged militants attacked the Rangers with automatic weapons and hand grenades.
In the attack, four Rangers were wounded.
A passer-by was also hit by a grenade shard.
Reinforcements were called in during an encounter that lasted for seven hours until around 3am.
The militants, including the woman, fortified themselves in a room as they continued to defy arrest and carried out at least three blasts intermittently.
However, the Rangers shot dead one of them during the exchange of fire.
Three militants blew themselves up in the blasts.
As a result of the blasts, the infant was also killed.
One militant was identified as Mohammad Zahid, whereas the rest could not be identified as their bodies were mutilated, the Rangers said.
The Rangers did not name any group the militants were affiliated with but Raja Umar Khatab, a senior officer of counter terrorism department (CTD) said the militants could possibly be members of Jandullah, a banned terrorist outfit, or with Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
The militants were living in the neighbourhood as a family and so it was difficult for the police to trace them. The ammunition and weapons recovered from the apartment were very dangerous, he said.
Khatab further said the network of Jandullah was eliminated in Karachi in 2009-10.
However, he said, it seemed the militants came from Afghanistan through Wadh town in Balochistan province and then entered Karachi.
The Rangers raid came a day after their operational capability was validated by the government only on the weekend after their policing power expired on April 17.