Pakistan Security Brief – June 8, 2009
Following a suicide attack at a local mosque in Upper Dir on Friday, local residents have formed militias and begun attacking Taliban and related militants in the area over the past several days; Pakistani police reportedly detained Afghan insurgent commander Anwar ul-Haq Mujahid in Peshawar on Sunday; a militant siege on a Pakistani security forces convoy on Friday in Malakand district killed two senior TNSM aides being transported by the Pakistani military following their capture; politically-charged violence in Karachi led to over two dozen deaths in the past week.
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Swat TTP spokesman Muslim Khan made a statement rejecting the government’s version of the attack on an army prisoner transport convoy that led to the deaths of captured TNSM leaders Muhammad Alam and Ameer Izzat Khan. Muslim Khan blamed the NWFP governor, chief minister, and military for their deaths in the attack in Sakhakot on Saturday and called the TNSM leaders “martyrs”. He accused the government of having a policy of deliberately eliminating “all Taliban leaders and commanders.”[1]
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Hundreds of tribesmen from Upper Dir have continued their offensive against towns believed to be Swati Taliban strongholds. It is believed that 11 Taliban fighters have been killed in the three-day-old offensive. It is estimated that between 1000 and 1500 tribesman took up arms against the Taliban after swearing to avenge a mosque bombing in Upper Dir that led to the deaths of 38 people. The tribesmen claim to have occupied three villages and say they are going to push the Taliban out of two more.[2]
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Pakistani police have reportedly arrested a senior leader of the Afghan Taliban in Peshawar. It is reported that Anwar ul-Haq Mujahid, commander of the Tora Bora Military Front, was captured in a police raid while he was in Peshawar, allegedly for medical treatment. Mujahid’s group operates in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar and is implicated in several attacks, “including the April 2008 suicide strike and ambush against a drug eradication team operating in the district of Khogiani.”[3]
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A suicide bomb attack on a police station in Islamabad killed two people over the weekend. The bomber was said to have scaled the rear wall of the compound but police opened fire on him before he could reach his intended target, the main building. In the ensuing exchange and explosion, a policeman was killed and four others injured.[4]
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Political violence in Karachi has led to the deaths of 26 people this past week. The fighting and “tit-for-tat shootings” are mainly driven by a power struggle between Karachi’s dominant political party, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), and the MQM breakaway group, Mohajir Qaumi Movement or Haqiqi group.[5]