Taliban suicide bombers killed a police chief during a pair of attacks today against two stations in a quiet region in Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province.
A police chief was killed and six other police officers were wounded in the attacks in the district of Mansehra, a region that has seen few Taliban attacks. The suicide bombers struck police stations in the towns of Mansehra and Balikot.
Pakistani police defeated the first suicide attack in the town of Mansehra, which was carried out by two bombers armed with assault rifles. Police opened fire on the Taliban assault team and shot and killed the first suicide bomber. The second bomber fled, and police are searching for him, AFP reported.
In the second attack, in Balakot, a suicide bomber succeeded in killing a local police chief and wounding three others.
The Mansehra Taliban are said to be led by Moman Khan, who previously claimed to have been commander of the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi but has since said he no longer works with the group. Khan is said to have been behind recent threats and attacks against nongovernmental organizations in neighboring Abbottabad. The Lashkar-i-Jhangvi is an anti-Shia terror group that has been co-opted by al Qaeda and has conducted numerous attacks inside Pakistan.
In April 2009, Taliban fighters moved into the Mansehra region and established a base and a training camp. The move took place as the Pakistani military launched an offensive to depose the Taliban, led by Mullah Fazlullah, in the nearby Swat Valley.
Since the spring of 2009, the Taliban have established bases in the districts of Shangla, Haripur, Battagram, Mardan, and Swabi. Taliban units ranging from 50 to 150 fighters fanned out through the districts, encountering no resistance from the military, which claimed it had established blocking positions to prevent the Taliban from retreating from the battlefield and bleeding into bordering districts.
There has been little effort to root out the Taliban in these districts. The military launched a limited operation in Swabi in the beginning of February; during that operation, the military killed three Taliban fighters.
Airstrike in South Waziristan kills 30 Taliban
In South Waziristan, the Pakistani Air Force claim to have killed more than 30 Taliban fighters in an attack earlier today in the mountainous Shawal region in the Mehsud tribal areas.
“The hideout in Shawal was targeted after we were tipped off that terrorists were hiding in the mountains,” a military spokesman told Dawn.
In mid-October 2009, the military launched an operation in the Mehsud tribal areas to take on the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, which is led by Hakeemullah Mehsud. The military has claimed that more than 500 Taliban fighters have been killed in the battles. On Feb. 15, Chief of the Army Staff General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani announced that the key military objectives have been achieved in South Waziristan.
But the Taliban still control half of the tribal agency; the military did not target the Taliban under the command of Mullah Nazir, who shelters al Qaeda leaders and operatives and also conducts attacks across the border in Afghanistan.
