Pakistan Security Brief
Airstrikes destroy five hideouts and kill five militants in Boya and Miram Shah; Pakistan and Afghanistan agree to work to increase security; Improvised explosive device kills Pakistani soldier in North Waziristan; 400 suspected militants killed since operation began; Officials register 572,529 internally displaced persons from North Waziristan; Government establishes new IDP registration center in Peshawar; Afghan delegation meets with Pakistani officials in Rawalpindi to discuss counter-terrorism efforts; Police arrest nine suspected militants in Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa; Armed men attack Levies post in Balochistan; Armed menfire upon police in Sindh, killing three policemen; Another man dies of reported cardiac arrest in army custody in Swat; 111 Brigade surveyed Benazir Bhutto International Airport in Islamabad; 36-40 suspected militants attack police checkpoint in Gilgit-Baltistan, police report zero injuries; Mulk sworn in as new Chief Justice.
North Waziristan Offensive
On July 7, Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff, General Raheel Sharif, visited Pakistani military troops in North Waziristan and thanked them and for their efforts in this operation. He also expressed solidarity with North Waziristan’s Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). XI Corps Commander, Lieutenant General Khalid Rabbani, received Sharif when he arrived. Later, Sharif met with the General Officer Commanding in-charge of the North Waziristan operation.[1]
On July 6, the Express Tribune reported that the Pakistani military said it could not give a time estimate for when the offensive will be completed, however it has said that 40 percent of Miram Shah, North Waziristan’s headquarters, has been cleared of militants.[2]
Locals from Miram Shah, North Waziristan, were quoted in a July 6 AFP report as saying that hundreds of militants had cut their hair and beards to more easily evade notice and capture as they fled North Waziristan in advance of Operation Zarb-e-Azb. One barber told reporters that he cut the hair of “more than 700 local and Uzbek militants” in Bannu, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province who were planning on travelling into Pakistan’s heartland, including its capital, Islamabad.[3]
Early on the morning of July 5, airstrikes in response to hostile fire from militants destroyed five militant strongholds, cave hideouts, and ammunition caches and killed five suspected militants in Boya village and Miram Shah town, North Waziristan Agency. According to Director General Inter-Services Public Relations, most of the militants killed in the strikes were Uzbeks. The News reported that according to military officials, militants have created refuges in Boya and Datta Khel.[4]
On July 5, an improvised explosive device (IED) explosion killed a Pakistani soldier during morning clearance operations in an undisclosed location in North Waziristan Agency. 20 Pakistani soldiers died since the beginning of the operation on June 15. [5]
On July 5, an explosion near Spinwam security check post, North Waziristan killed one security personnel and injured two others. According to military sources, more troops were deployed in the area to increase security in response to the attack.[6]
Dawn reported on July 5 that airstrikes earlier that day destroyed suspected militant hideouts in the Daigan, Poikhel and Muhammad Khel areas of North Waziristan.[7]
Dawn reported on July 5 that more than 400 suspected militants have been killed and at least 19 IED-making factories discovered in Miram Shah, North Waziristan since the beginning of the North Waziristan offensive. Reportedly, four Miram Shah residences contained IEDs and most roads were rigged with explosives and landmines. The Pakistani military also claims to have found literature and flags from foreign militant groups, including the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and Uighur militants.[8]
On July 3, security forces recovered the bodies of seven suspected militants killed in clashes with troops in the ongoing military operation in the Darpa Khel area of Mir Ali, North Waziristan Agency.[9]
Internally Displaced Persons
The Prime Minister’s office reported on July 7 that government and military officials have registered 572,529 IDPs from North Waziristan Agency since the beginning of Operation Zarb-e-Azb on June 15. According to differing reports by The News on July 7, nearly 751,986 IDPs have been registered from North Waziristan Agency. Bannu Commissioner Syed Mohsin Shah reported the higher numbers in a meeting with Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan in Bannu on July 6. According to the Prime Minister’s Office, the government has released Rs 1.5 billion ($ 15.2 million) for IDPs and has distributed Rs 329 million ($3.3 million) to IDPs. Dawn reported on July 7 that the government had originally planned for just over 500,000 IDPs.[10]
On July 7, the Fata Disaster Management Authority (FDMA) set up a registration center for internally displaced persons (IDPs) from North Waziristan Agency at Government College of Commerce and Management Sciences No 2 in the city of Peshawar in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province. The center began to register IDPs from Miram Shah district in North Waziristan Agency on July 7.[11]
On July 6, up to 93 families of IDPs returned to the Eidak village of Mir Ali sub-district in North Waziristan Agency after security forces declared the area cleared of any militant presence.[12]
On July 5, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif announced his decision to personally supervise aid efforts for the IDPs. He said “We will make sure that after the operation the displaced persons are brought back and rehabilitated with honour.”[13]
On July 4, unidentified gunman shot and killed at least two IDPs from North Waziristan Agency at an IDP registration camp at Government High School No 4 Mundan in Bannu district in Khyber-Pankhtunkwa Province.[14]
Pak-Afghan Relations
In a meeting with Pakistani officials in Rawalpindi on July 3, senior Afghan military officials asserted that Afghanistan had never sheltered Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) leader Mullah Fazlullah or members of other terrorist groups on Afghan soil. The Afghan Foreign Ministry said that during the meeting, Pakistani and Afghan officials agreed to target all terrorist groups including the Haqqani Network and the Afghan Taliban operating out of Quetta.[15]
Militancy
Armed militants on motorcycles fired at and set ablaze a tanker in Quetta on July 7. The tanker was traveling to Afghanistan and the attack occurred in Hazaar Ganji area of Quetta.[16]
In multiple raids on July 7, security forces arrested nine suspected militants in Dera Ismail Khan district, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, the Alipur area of Muzaffargarh district and in Dera Ghazi Khan district of Punjab Province. Police seized suicide jackets, hand grenades and heavy weapons from the suspected militants.[17]
On July 6, a targeted attack in Karachi’s old Sabza Mandi area killed two officers of the banned Sunni extremist organization, Ahle-Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ). The two officers were returning to Saddar after a religious seminar when they were attacked by two unknown assailants on motorcycles.[18]
On July 6, armed men set three motorcycles of Levies personnel and a Levies post on fire in the Nasirabad area of Turbat district in Balochistan. In a separate incident in the Khairabad area of Turbat, unidentified individuals set a power utility vehicle on fire.[19]
On the night of July 6, armed men fired upon a police vehicle and killed three policemen in the Latifabad area of Hyderabad in Sindh province.[20]
A militant died of alleged cardiac arrest on July 6 while in army custody in Swat district in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province. He was arrested in the 2009 Swat military operation. Numerous militants in army custody in Swat have died of reported cardiac arrest since the conclusion of the operation in 2009.[21]
Police arrested a suspected militant in Fatihpur in Swat district on July 5. Police linked the suspected militant, Mian Said Buhar, to terror activities in Manglawar in Swat district in 2008.[22]
On the night of July 5, Rangers personnel killed two suspected TTP militants in a raid on a militant hideout in the Metroville area of Karachi’s Sindh Industrial Trading Estate (SITE) Town.[23]
At least six men in cars and on motorcycles fired on a checkpoint run by Levies personnel in Gwargo area of Panjgur district in Balochistan Province on July 5. No personnel were injured in the attack but the attackers managed to steal weapons and wireless communications equipment.[24]
The Pakistan Army’s 111 Brigade started surveying the area in and around Benazir Bhutto International Airport in Islamabad on July 4. The brigade decided to place watchtowers occupied by snipers on roads near the airport and considered deploying an elite security force to Kuri road near the Airport Security Force camp.[25]
Sources from the Balochistan Home and Tribal Affairs Department reported on July 4 that 800 bodies have been discovered in the last three years in the areas of Quetta, Khuzdar and Makran in Balochistan Province. 466 of the victims were identified by the Home and Tribal Affairs Department as ethnically Baloch, most of whom were workers with the political administration.[26]
Police in Swabi district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province arrested a militant on July 4 connected to three separate bomb attacks in the district. Police found five kilograms of explosive material on the suspect, Noorul Amin, who admitted to bombing multiple schools in the district along with the EPI center near the District Headquarters of Swabi. Amin also confessed to planting bombs outside the houses of political leaders in the area.[27]
On July 4, outside Makki Masjid (mosque) in the Saddar area of Karachi, two motorcyclists belonging to Jeay Sindh Muttahida Mahaz, a Sindhi nationalist movement, collided and set off explosives they were carrying. Both men were killed in the explosions and two other people were injured.[28]
According to police sources, 36-40 suspected militants wearing Pakistan Army uniforms overran a police station on the morning of July 4 in Diamer district in Gilgit-Baltistan near the Kakakoram Highway. The attackers tied up the six police personnel present and took police property, including machine guns and pistols.[29]
A toy-bomb exploded as two sisters played with it on July 3, killing both children and injuring their uncle in the New Abadi area of Zhob Town in Balochistan Province.[30]
International Relations
At a meeting on July 5 in Berlin, Germany’s Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Michael Koch told a Pakistani senate delegation to Germany led by Chairman of the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Senator Haji Muhammad Adeel, that Afghanistan should support Pakistani efforts to reduce terrorism. At the meeting, the recently passed Pakistani Protection Act was discussed.[31]
Chief Justice Sworn In
