Pakistani fighter jets on Tuesday pounded Taliban sanctuaries, as the militant group claimed responsibility for the latest in a wave of attacks that have killed 125 people in a week.
Fighter jets launched another round of bombing raids, killing six suspected insurgents in South Waziristan, the semi-autonomous region near Afghanistan and a known stronghold of Taliban and al-Qaeda-linked rebels, officials said.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik, meanwhile, vowed to wipe out the Islamist extremist threat in Pakistan, with a fierce military operation into the Taliban’s mountain sanctuaries believed to be imminent.
The army claims to have already quashed militants in the one-time tourist paradise of Swat valley, but on Monday a teenage suicide bomber struck in the neighboring northwest district of Shangla, killing 45 people.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for that attack, with spokesman Azam Tariq saying: “This is revenge for our martyrs … This is part of the series of attacks that we are carrying out. Wait and see more.”
The group have also claimed responsibility for a weekend hostage drama at the Pakistani army headquarters, which hit at the heart of one of the most powerful institutions in the nuclear-armed country.
Local media have reported that the threat to army headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi was known in advance by police, and have questioned why the siege which left 23 people dead was not thwarted.
On Oct. 5, the News published extracts of a correspondence between the interior ministry and Punjab authorities, warning that militants in army uniforms were planning to target headquarters — exactly what happened days later.
“Don’t blame intelligence agencies, they have foiled several planned attacks, we foiled at least 100 attacks before they were carried out,” Malik told reporters.
A spokesperson for Punjab Senator Pervaiz Rashid said the provincial home department had dispatched a confidential letter to the army and other departments in July highlighting possible targets.
“It was mentioned categorically in the letter that terrorists have been planning to get into GHQ [General Headquarters] clad in military uniform and using a military vehicle,” the official said.
Military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas has said the army HQ attack was planned in the Taliban stronghold of South Waziristan on the Afghan border.
Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi flew to Washington on Tuesday to air concerns about a US$7.5 billion aid package that has raised hackles among the country’s military, officials said.
US Democratic Senator John Kerry on Tuesday strongly denied that the package would impinge on Pakistan’s sovereignty at a joint news conference with Qureshi.
Kerry, a close ally of US President Barack Obama, embarked on a tour of Pakistan and Afghanistan yesterday, said Tomeika Bowden, a spokeswoman for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which Kerry chairs.
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of civilians have fled South Waziristan region fearing an imminent army offensive against Taliban militants, officials said yesterday.
Military and government officials vowed in June to launch an operation into the mountainous northwest stronghold of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, but so far only air raids and occasional artillery strikes have hit rebel sanctuaries.
“People are coming out of the area and around 90,000 people have left the area and have been shifted to safer places in Dera Ismail Khan and Tank,” said Shahab Ali Shah, the top administrative official in South Waziristan.
“People have started coming out of the area because of the fear of an army operation,” said Amir Latif, chief administrative official in Tank district.
Hameedullah Khan, a senior government official in Dera Ismail Khan, said his district had registered about 8,300 families, or about 60,000 people.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was