Pakistan Security Brief

Army chief General Raheel Sharif spends Eid with troops in North Waziristan, says North Waziristan offensive will continue until all militants gone; Unknown gunman attacks home of former Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa minister, killing six; Bomb disposal unit defuses two IEDs in Nowshera; Police kill four TTP militants in Karachi; 3,500 policemen and commandos deployed in Rawalpindi; IED damages railway track in Quetta; Militants behead Frontier Corps soldier in Jumrud, Khyber Agency.

North Waziristan

• Inter-Service Public Relations announced that Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif spent Eid with military personnel in North Waziristan. General Sharif then visited Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Bannu. Reiterating Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s statement from July 28, General Sharif said that the North Waziristan offensive would continue until all militants are eliminated.[1]

Militancy

• On July 29, unknown gunmen fired on the guesthouse of a former Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa minister and Qaumi Watan Party (QWP) member Bakht Baidar Khan, killing six people and wounding four.  Khan was holding a tribal Jirga to resolve a dispute between two parties at his guesthouse in Chakdara area of Lower Dir, Khyber-Pakhtunkwa, when the attack occurred.[2]

• On July 29, a bomb disposal unit defused two improvised explosive (IEDs) devices near a Khushal Colony residence in Nowshera. The IEDs weighed five kilograms each.[3]

• Four Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants were killed in a firefight with police on the Super Highway near Sohrab Goth in Karachi on the night of July 28.  The militants fired on police after attempting to flee a police raid on their compound; four militants escaped.  Police officials said that the deceased militants were responsible for attacking security forces and kidnapping people for ransom to generate funds for the TTP in Karachi.[4]

• On July 28, police officials in Rawalpindi announced the deployment of 3,500 policemen and commandos to all sensitive locations and entry and exit points of the city to provide enhanced security during the Eid-ul-Fitr holidays.[5]

• A bomb detonated near, and damaged, a railway track in Musa Colony, Quetta, injuring two people on the night of July 28.  The bomb targeted but failed to hit an approaching Quetta Express passenger train.[6]

• On July 27, suspected militants in the Shangari area of Jumrud sub-district, Khyber Agency beheaded a Frontier Corps soldier while he was on leave for Eid-ul-Fitr. The soldier’s body was found in a stream in Saingari area.[7]