Pakistani Taliban warn of new attacks on police

The Pakistani Taliban warned Saturday against new attacks targeting the police the day after that claimed against a police building in Karachi, which left four dead

Pakistani Taliban warn of new attacks on police

The Pakistani Taliban warned Saturday against new attacks targeting the police the day after that claimed against a police building in Karachi, which left four dead.

"Police must stay away from our war against the military...otherwise attacks on places housing senior police officials will continue," the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan ( TTP) in a press release, in English.

"We want to once again warn security agencies to stop torturing innocent prisoners in fake clashes, otherwise the intensity of future attacks will be greater," he said.

The TTP claimed responsibility for Friday's assault on police officers in Karachi, which came less than three weeks after a suicide bombing at a mosque inside a police building in Peshawar (northwest) that killed more of 80 agents.

On Friday evening, a Taliban suicide squad seized the sprawling police complex in Karachi, the economic and financial capital of the south of the country.

Two police officers, a (paramilitary) ranger and a cleaner died in the attack, officials said.

According to initial findings, the three dead assailants were from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province (northwest), the base of the TTP and the site of the January attack, a senior investigator told AFP. "They entered the police headquarters compound through the rear entrance which is used by police residents," the investigator said on condition of anonymity.

The tightly guarded complex, which is located in the heart of the city, houses dozens of administrative and residential buildings as well as hundreds of officers and their families.

For more than three hours, violent exchanges of gunfire and explosions of grenades were heard, before the security forces managed to regain control of the building.

The stairwells riddled with bullets testify to the fierce armed battle that took place there.

In Pakistan, the police are often used on the front line in the fight against the Taliban and are frequently the target of extremists who accuse them of extrajudicial executions.

On January 30, more than 80 police officers were killed when an assailant detonated his explosive vest at a mosque inside a police building in Peshawar, in the northwest of the country.

The attack drew criticism from some junior officers who said they had to do the army's job.

"The elimination of terrorist groups has unfortunately not been a priority for the state," political analyst Tauseef Ahmed Khan told AFP.

“Such attacks will continue to recur until the state significantly and completely transforms its policy towards such militancy and terrorism,” added the specialist.

The TTP, which is distinct from the Afghan Taliban but shares a fundamentalist Islamist ideology, emerged in Pakistan in 2007.

He killed tens of thousands of Pakistani civilians and members of the security forces in less than a decade before being driven out of tribal areas by a military operation launched in 2014.

But attacks - mostly targeting security forces - have been on the rise again since the Afghan Taliban took control of Kabul in August 2021 and a months-long shaky ceasefire between the TTP and Islamabad took hold. end in November 2022.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has promised to eradicate violence. "Pakistan will not just uproot terrorism, it will kill terrorists by bringing them to justice," he tweeted on Friday.

"This great nation is determined to end this evil forever," he added.

Condemning the attack, State Department spokesman Ned Price said the United States stands "firmly with the people of Pakistan in the face of this terrorist attack. Violence is not the answer, and it must stop".

The January 30 attack on police premises in Peshawar was blamed on a group affiliated with the Pakistani Taliban.

The country's provinces have announced that they are on high alert after the attack, with reinforced checkpoints and additional security forces deployed.

"There is a general threat all over the country, but there was no specific threat there," Home Secretary Sanaullah said of Friday's attack in Karachi. .

In their statement, the Taliban called the raid a "blessed martyrdom" and warned that there would be more.

"This attack is a message to all anti-Islamic security agencies in Pakistan...army and police will be targeted in every major location until the path of the implementation of the Islamic system in the country is open," they said.

02/18/2023 10:19:13 -        Karachi (AFP) -         © 2023 AFP