Pakistan Security Brief - June 10, 2014

Second TTP attack on Karachi airport facility in two days; TTP claims it intended to hijack aircraft for use in attacks, al Qaeda may had role in attacks; Pakistani officials suspect advance TTP planning and preparation in Karachi siege; Siege death toll increases as seven more bodies found; Prime minister chairs high-level security meeting; TTP threatens full-out war starting June 10, more attacks unless government declares permanent ceasefire; Air force pounds militant hideouts, kills 25 in Khyber agency; Car bomb attack kills four in North Waziristan; Gul Bahadur group extends deadline for evacuation or locals prior to North Waziristan operation to June 20; Attack on Kurram checkpost kills two; Iran fires rockets into Pakistan; Pakistan places order with Russia for new gunships; Pakistan rejects Afghan allegations of complicity in Abdullah Abdullah assassination attempt.

Karachi Airport Attacks and Fallout

• On Tuesday, one day after the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) siege on Karachi airport came to an end, militants conducted a second attack on an Airport Security Force training academy located on the airport’s campus. “Three to four” gunmen reportedly fired on personnel at the camp but did not breach the facility or cause any new casualties. They were able to successfully flee the scene. The TTP claimed responsibility for the second attack as well.[1]

• “Senior” TTP members on Monday claimed that the TTP’s objectives in launching the attack on Karachi’s airport were to hijack aircraft for use in attacks, damage state infrastructure, cause the country economic and reputational loss and prove that the TTP was still an active and vibrant force. One TTP member claimed that some of the attackers knew how to pilot the aircraft they planned on hijacking and that the assault was assisted by other “brotherly Jihadi organizations.” When queried whether al Qaeda facilitated the attack, the member did deny that al Qaeda may have helped but refused to name the organizations that assisted the TTP in launching the attack. The TTP’s central spokesman, Shahidullah Shahid, warned that attacks would continue until the government implemented a “permanent cease-fire.”[2]

• TTP central spokesman Shahidullah Shahid on Monday threatened that the TTP would launch a “full-out war” against the Pakistani state starting on June 10. A TTP statement released on Monday quoted Shahid as saying the TTP was prepared for an imminent Pakistani military operation in North Waziristan and would help defend North Waziristan’s tribes if local Taliban commander Hafiz Gul Bahadur declared war against the Pakistani state.[3]

• According to a Monday report, officials investigating the Karachi airport siege speculated that militants probably cached a number of weapons and explosives on the airport’s grounds prior to the attack, as the quantity of militant arms and equipment discovered after the attack probably could not have been be carried in by the ten assailants who later died during the attack. The report claims the interior ministry had also issued prior warning to law-enforcement agencies that militants, particularly those attached to the TTP, al Qaeda and the Ilyas Kashmiri group may try and target the airport and other airbases.[4]

• The death toll in the Karachi airport siege increased on Monday when authorities discovered the bodies of seven more civilians who died in a fire started during the assault. The seven employees of a private cargo company locked themselves in a cold-storage facility to escape the attack, but died when they were unable to escape the facility after it caught fire.[5]

• Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday held a high-level meeting in Islamabad on internal security following the attacks on Karachi airport and Shia pilgrims in Balochistan in the preceding days. The interior minister, army chief, chief of the army’s general staff and head of the Inter-Services-Intelligence’s (ISI) counterintelligence division were also in attendance.[6]

Militancy

• Pakistan Air Force jets pounded nine suspected militant hideouts in the Kokikhel area of the Tirah valley, Khyber agency area on Tuesday. The strikes reportedly killed at least 25 suspected militants.[7]

• A suicide car-bomb attack on a Pakistani military checkpoint near Boya, along the Datta Khel road in North Waziristan agency on Monday killed at least three Frontier Corps (FC) soldiers and a child and injured 12 others.[8]

• The main Taliban group in North Waziristan led by Hafiz Gul Bahadur announced on Monday that it was extending till June 20 a deadline it had earlier set for June 10 for tribesmen to flee North Waziristan and for Bahadur-allied fighters to return from Afghanistan in anticipation of a Pakistani military operation in the tribal agency. Bahadur’s spokesman also promised to investigate a recent attack on the Pakistani military convoy in Boya.[9]

• Two Kurram Levies personnel died in Mangak, Kurram agency on Monday when militants in a vehicle stopped at a security checkpost opened fire on them. A local government official and another Levies official were also wounded in the attack. One of the attackers was arrested while two others reportedly managed to flee to Afghanistan.[10]

Iran Cross-Border Firing

• A day after a suicide gun-and-bomb attack killed dozens of Shia pilgrims in Pakistan on the Iran-Balochistan border, Iranian border guards on Monday fired 24 rockets into Balochistan’s Panjgur district. The rockets landed 2 km away from an FC checkpost. No casualties were reported.[11]

Russo-Pakistan Relations

• Russian Ambassador to Pakistan Alexey Dedov said on Tuesday in Islamabad that Pakistan had just placed an order with the Russian government to purchase several of the “latest” Mi-35 Hind helicopters for “multipurpose use including fighting terrorism.” The deal is currently being negotiated.[12]

Afghan-Pakistan Relations

• Pakistan’s Foreign Office on Monday rejected Afghan allegations that it was involved in a recent assassination attempt on Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah and countered that Pakistan’s interests were not served by the disruption of the Afghan elections.[13]