Pakistan held its first Republic Day parade in seven years yesterday, full of flag-waving pomp and aerial military expertise, a symbolic show of strength in the war against the Taliban months after a militant attack on a school killed 132 children.
The Pakistan Day parade, complete with a 31-gun dawn salute, was held amid tight security. Cellular phone networks were blocked as a precaution to thwart any strike by militants, who have often used mobile phone signals to trigger bombs.
No parades had been held since 2008, following an escalation in the military’s conflict with the Pakistani Taliban.
Photo: AFP
However, the military says the militants have been on the run since the army launched an operation last year to dislodge insurgents from hideouts in the northwestern tribal regions of Khyber and North Waziristan, on the rugged border with Afghanistan.
Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who attended the parade, issued a statement warning of the threat from anti-state elements bent on destroying the country.
“Pakistan is resolved to redeem its pledge given to its founding fathers that it will protect the homeland,” Sharif said in the statement.
Military jets and helicopters flew over the picturesque, low-rise city in the warm, spring sunshine, with a sky-diving team due to show off its skills against the backdrop of the Margalla Hills, the low, forested foothills of the Himalayas.
The show of military might has traditionally also sent a message to rival India. The two nuclear-armed neighbors have fought three wars since their independence from Britain in 1947 and continuing mistrust is a factor behind conflict in various parts of the region, including Afghanistan.
Relations between the two nosedived after deadly attacks on Mumbai in 2008, which India has always blamed on Pakistan-based militants, and have not fully recovered. A longstanding dispute over the Kashmir region periodically flares into violence.
Pakistani troops have boasted recent successes against the Taliban, who aim to topple the state and establish strict Islamic rule.
The military on Sunday said it had killed 80 “terrorists” in heavy clashes and suffered seven casualties. Fighter jets have pounded positions in the Tirah Valley in the Khyber region over the past few days.
The country is still in mourning after December last year’s attack on the army-run high school in the northwestern city of Peshawar. Six gunmen believed linked to the Pakistani Taliban killed 153 people, 132 of them children.
Pakistan Day commemorates March 23, 1940, when the Muslim League demanded the establishment of separate nations to protect Muslims in the then-British colony of India.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS