Recent terror attacks linked to sanctuaries across border
islamabad — Maj-Gen. Asif Ghafoor, a military spokesman, has linked the recent deadly attacks in Parachinar, Quetta and Karachi to militant sanctuaries in neighbouring Afghanistan and promised greater border security.
The DG ISPR said: “Recent terrorist incidents linked to sanctuaries across [the Pak-Afghan border].”
“Stringent action” will be taken against “illegal border-crossers”, he asserted.
Security forces raided a militant hideout in the northwestern city of Peshawar before dawn on Saturday, triggering a shootout in which three Taleban militants were killed and two police officers were wounded, senior police official Sajjad Khan said.
He said the militants were making bombs that likely would have been used to target Eid festivities.
Khan said the identity of the slain militants was not immediately known. But intelligence officials said one of the men has been identified as a wanted militant commander linked to the Daesh group. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to release the information.
Meanwhile, the death toll from twin blasts in the northwestern town of Parachinar climbed to 55 overnight, bringing the overall death toll from three separate attacks on Friday to 73, with several others in critical condition, officials said.
Shahid Khan, a government official in Parachinar, confirmed the toll on Saturday, saying residents who had been preparing to celebrate Eid Al Fitr at the end of Ramadan were now in mourning. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, an extremist group, claimed the twin bombings at a crowded market in the town, linking them to sectarian fighting in Syria.
Dr Sabir Hussain, an official at a government-run hospital in Parachinar, said they had received 261 victims of the twin blasts, with 62 listed in critical condition.
Another 14 people were killed on Friday in a suicide car bombing near the office of the provincial police chief in the southwestern city of Quetta, police spokesman Shahzada Farhat said. That attack was claimed by a breakaway Taleban faction and the Daesh group. Gunmen in the port city of Karachi attacked police officers at a roadside restaurant, killing four of them before fleeing, senior police officer Asif Ahmed said.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned the attacks, which came just days before Eid Al Fitr, the festive occasion that marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. — Agencies