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Pak Interior Minister: Militants Focusing on Security Targets

October 15, 2009 in Pakistan, Terrorism, Violence | No comments

Pakistani officials say gunmen attacked three law enforcement buildings in the eastern city of Lahore Thursday. Earlier, a suicide car bomber hit a police station in the northwest.

http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-10-15-voa8.cfm

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Late Thursday, a bomb blast hit a government residential area in Peshawar.

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There have been nine attacks in Pakistan in the last 10 days. In that time, we’ve seen attacks on the army’s headquarters, security checkpoints, police training stations and the country’s equivalent of the FBI.

Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik says it appears the militants are focusing their sights on symbols of the country’s security. But Malik vowed that these attacks will not deter the government from pursuing the militants.

Looking at the local media, it appears the government is on the defensive. Sure you hear about the daily skirmish in the country’s northwest between the military and militants, but in terms of shock value, the militants are winning the PR war.

Several Pakistanis have told me that the situation has come to the point where there isn’t a target that could shock them now.

Tags: attack, Lahore, militants, NWFP, Pakistan, security

Pakistani Militants Show Their Reach

October 12, 2009 in Pakistan, Terrorism, Violence | No comments

In the last eight days, more than 100 people have died in terror attacks across Pakistan. The latest violence was Monday’s suicide bombing near Swat Valley that killed more than 40 people.

http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-10-12-voa8.cfm

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The militants have shown their reach, whether it is in Pakistan’s northwest, a high-security area of the capital or one of the most unthinkable targets in the country: the army headquarters.

The interesting thing about the attack on the army HQ (known as the GHQ) is that not all the militants involved in the fighting were from South Waziristan.

Several were from Punjab province, and army spokesman, Major General Athar Abbas, said the sole militant captured in the attack also was involved in the assault on Sri Lanka’s cricket team earlier this year.

The attack on the cricket team in Lahore was one of several operations that analysts believe are relatively new collaborations among Pakistani Taliban from the tribal areas and outlawed militant groups such as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.

Overall though, Abbas said the militants in South Waziristan are responsible for more than 80 percent of all terror attacks inside Pakistan.

I spoke to the former security chief of Pakistan’s tribal regions, Mahmood Shah, and he repeated his insistence that the military needs to tackle militants based in the tribal region soon.

In the meantime, the militants have vowed more attacks. The question is: Where will they strike next?

Tags: attack, militants, NWFP, Pakistan, security, south waziristan, suicide, Swat Valley

On the Scene: Pak Army HQ Attack

October 10, 2009 in On the Scene, Pakistan, Terrorism, Violence | No comments

A VOA colleague and I were traveling this morning to Rawalpindi to meet with a high-level official at the Inter Services Public Relations office. The office is located on the premises of the Pakistani Army’s headquarters in a high-security area.

Our meeting was scheduled for noon, and as we got closer to the ISPR offices, we kept getting stuck in traffic.

A military official called my colleague and said there was a loud bang and then gunfire around the premises. We then called an assistant to the official we were going to meet, and he said that they were stuck in the office because there was shooting going on outside.

By that time, we had talked our way through several security checkpoints and arrived about 200 meters from the scene.

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These are images that I captured: