Gunmen opened fire on a passenger jet as it landed in Pakistan’s troubled northwest, killing a female passenger and wounding two crew, as the military wages an anti-Taliban offensive.
The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight, landing in Peshawar from Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, came under fire late on Tuesday as it descended with more than 170 passengers on board.
Authorities said the plane landed safely, but that a catastrophe was only narrowly avoided as it was still 1,500m above the ground when it was hit with eight bullets from the unidentified attackers.
“The shots were fired from outside the airport; one lady passenger and two stewards were wounded, the woman later died in the hospital,” airline spokesman Mashud Tajwar said.
Tajwar said the reason for the firing was not yet clear, but the airline had not received any threats.
Muhammad Faisal, a senior police official in Peshawar, said the forensic report revealed that eight AK-47 bullets were fired on the plane about 5km from the runway, hitting it in the tail section.
Police have cordoned off an area outside the airport to search for the gunmen and paid tribute to the pilot’s cool head.
“Credit goes to the aeroplane pilot that he managed to land safely,” senior police official Najeeb Ur Rehman said.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, which forced flights at the Bacha Khan International Airport in Peshawar to be suspended briefly.
The incident came two weeks after a bloody raid on the international airport in the southern port city of Karachi that extinguished a largely fruitless peace process with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
Tuesday also saw the first suicide bombing in North Waziristan since the military launched a major operation against the Taliban and other militants who have strongholds there. Three people were killed in the attack.
The military said that it had killed 47 fighters in the tribal northwest in the latest air strikes carried out as part of its assault, which began on June 15.
The armed forces have used jet fighters, tanks and artillery to kill more than 300 people they have described as militants, although the number and identity of the victims are impossible to verify.
The suicide bomber struck in North Waziristan’s Spinwam village, detonating a car bomb when he was intercepted on the approach to a checkpoint, officials said, killing two soldiers and a civilian.
The deaths bring to 12 the number of security forces killed in the offensive, dubbed “Zarb-e-Azb” after a sword used in battle by the Prophet Mohammed, since its launch on June 15.
The Ansar-ul-Mujahedin militant group, a Pakistani Taliban faction, claimed responsibility, with spokesman Abu Baseer saying it was the start of a counter-strike against Pakistani troops.
Earlier in the day, Pakistani jets and helicopters targeted militant hideouts at several locations in North Waziristan and the neighboring Khyber tribal region, killing 47 militants, a military statement said.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not