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The mangled vehicle of Maqbool Baqir, a senior antiterrorism judge in Karachi, is inspected by Pakistani investigators after it was struck by a remote-controlled bomb on June 26, 2013. The Pakistani Taliban were quick to claim credit for the attack. Photo source: AFP |
Sindh High Court Justice Maqbool Baqir barely survived a devastating roadside bombing as he traveled in a secured convoy near the Burns Road area in the sprawling city of Karachi this morning. The blast, which was triggered by remote control and included explosives tethered to a parked motorcycle, tore through Baqir’s SUV and killed 12 people, most of them Baqir’s security guards. An additional three police vans and two motorcycles were also damaged in the powerful explosion.
Baqir was rushed to a local hospital with severe head injuries caused by the bomb, which included ball bearings used as shrapnel. Hospital officials have since stated that Baqir remains in serious condition and is undergoing surgery for his wounds.
The Pakistani Taliban were quick to claim credit for the attack. More details were provided by the Express Tribune:
The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan said that the Taliban also carried out attacks on the local peace council chief in Bannu and a police officer in Peshawar.
“We claim responsibility for the attack on the Sindh High Court judge as he had delivered verdicts against Muslims and particularly the Mujahideen,” the TTP spokesman told The Express Tribune via phone.
He said the judge was also part of the “secular system” and the attack was completely in line with the Taliban policy to target all those who are part of the system.
Baqir, reportedly known for his honesty, was involved in a series of counterterrorism cases and was a key player in the recently established “antiterrorism courts,” a judiciary especially designed to impart quick punishments to convicted terrorists.
Baqir has faced a number of threats from militant groups, most recently from the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, a banned terrorist organization, according to Pakistan’s Dawn.
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9 Comments
instead of dismantling or scrapping some of the equipment & vehicles, such as the MRAP, the US chooses not to take with them when scaling down their Forces in Afghanistan we should pass them on to the Pakistani’s as part of the US Military Aid Package we provide to that country
Mike,
The PA (Pakistani Army) has a heavy tilt towards Sunni Punjabis and I would think a Shia judge in Karachi would be way down the list on getting a quality surplus vehicle such as a MRAP.
@bard207
I am very much familiar with the ‘composition’ of the Pakistani Military, Civil Service & the Industrial/Landlord infrastructure Nexus that exists in Pakistan & its history.
I fail to ‘see’ the connection between whether or not an individual/group does or does not receive adequate protection & US Military Aid to Pakistan.
Mike,
There has been violence in the Pakistani Punjabi areas, but the violence in the non Punjabi areas such as Karachi and Peshawar appears to be significantly greater.
At the moment, the PA is going through the motions in protecting the non Punjabi areas of Pakistan.
Yes, the PA will say that their main task – priority is to protect the country from the huge external threat that is India and defer to others for internal security in Pakistan, but I think that some it is that the PA isn’t going to make much of an effort to risk their lives for the non Punjabi areas of Pakistan.
Why do you expect the U.S. to be able to get the PA to Do the Right Thing and distribute quality surplus such as the MRAP to the non military (and non Punjabis) in cities with massive violence ( Karachi, Peshawar etc) when the PA has shown little effort to protect the people in those areas so far?
Pakistan continues to spend and give a high priority for weapons to be used against India and which are unlikely to be used against their true foe (Pakistani militants) that have killed many more Pakistanis than the Indians have in recent years.
@bard207
What the PA does with whatever equipment the US passes on to the them is obviously something out ‘our’ control. That being said, why destroy equipment that could easily be passed on to the PA under the rubric of the present Military Aid Agreement with Pakistan thus reducing what is being passed on from the US inventory. Besides I’m sure those elements of the Pakistani Military & Government tasked to ‘pacify’ those parts of Eastern Pakistan beyond the reach of the Central Government would welcome transport such as the MRAP.
While there certainly exists tension & friction betwixt the various factions in Pakistan Sunni Judges & Sunni Representatives in Government are as much a Target as their Shia & non-Muslim counterparts.
“Pakistan continues to spend and give a high priority for weapons to be used against India,” while this observation is certainly ‘true’ Pakistani Military personnel have suffered the majority of killed & wounded vs their ‘indigenous’ population.
http://tribune.com.pk/story/488362/new-doctrine-army-identifies-homegrown-militancy-as-biggest-threat/
Mike,
What the PA does with whatever equipment the US passes on to the them is obviously something out ‘our’ control. That being said, why destroy equipment that could easily be passed on to the PA under the rubric of the present Military Aid Agreement with Pakistan thus reducing what is being passed on from the US inventory.
I now see why we haven’t been in alignment in this discussion. I placed a tight linkage
between the originating story about the attack on the Shia judge and your comments about the surplus equipment such as the MRAP.
Your intentions were for a very weak linkage between the attack on the judge and
disposing of the surplus equipment. More of a place to share your thoughts about the
equipment and not too much about the attack.
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Besides I’m sure those elements of the Pakistani Military & Government tasked to ‘pacify’ those parts of Eastern Pakistan beyond the reach of the Central Government would welcome transport such as the MRAP.
I think that you meant Western Pakistan since I think of Eastern Pakistan as the Punjab
while I consider places such as Peshawar, Quetta, etc as Western Pakistan.
Cities in the Punjab such as Lahore, Islamabad etc, aren’t that safe, but I consider the
areas such as Peshawar, Quetta even more dangerous.
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While there certainly exists tension & friction betwixt the various factions in Pakistan Sunni Judges & Sunni Representatives in Government are as much a Target as their Shia & non-Muslim counterparts.
Agreed.
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“Pakistan continues to spend and give a high priority for weapons to be used against India,” while
this observation is certainly ‘true’ Pakistani Military personnel have suffered the majority of killed & wounded vs their ‘indigenous’ population.
Is there a breakdown of the date between regular PA (heavily Punjabi) killed versus Locals
kiled such as Frontier Corps, Rangers etc?
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@bard207
I’m sure if you, or anybody else for that for matter, in Pakistan had a choice to either ride to work in a rickshaw or a MRAP you’d/they would opt for the MRAP. You obviously pay close attention to Pakistan’s internal dynamic’s. Whats “weak” is to ignore the fact that just about every person, not just those of consequence, in Pakistan is a target & those doing the targeting have indulged themselves regularly/frequently for quite a few years.
Thanks for the direction correction. I was a breech birth. So I blame my occasional compass lapse’s on nature.
“Is there a breakdown of the date between regular PA (heavily Punjabi) killed versus Locals
kiled such as Frontier Corps, Rangers etc?”
That’s a great question. One of the things I have been busying myself with is to read everything TLWJ has ‘Posted’ on their website & break the data down into a spread sheet that addresses and or takes into account question(s) use just posed. But like a fish, monkey, cat etc., I’m easily sidetracked by ‘baubles,’ shiny ‘things,’ & ‘curiosities.’
By the way are you including Punjabi’s who have been killed by Frontier Corps, Rangers, etc.,?
Mike,
Just the PA Punjabis.
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I realize that just about everybody in Pakistan is – can be targeted, but my focus is on the PA being some combination of unwilling – unable to get serious about eliminating the Sunni militants. I think that the PA has conviction problems in fighting the TTP and similar Pakistani Sunni militants. It is easy for the PA to say the Indians (majority Hindus) are the enemy and difficult to acknowledge that fellow Sunni Muslims are the ones actually responsible for the violence against Pakistanis in recent years.
On at least one Pro Pakistan Forum, the CIA, RAW and Mossad are regarded as the Silent Hands funding and guiding the TTP. Yet, they don’t complain that much when the Imran Khan and Nawaz Sharif types talk about negotiations with the TTP. The participants on the Pro Pakistan web sites have too much in the way of logical inconsistencies for my taste.
The recent Dalrymple writeup isn’t perfect, but it does have some interesting parts.
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A Deadly Triangle (Afghanistan, Pakistan & India)
The danger posed by the jihadis—not just to India, but to Pakistan as well—is increasingly clear to all. In the late spring, when I tried to have breakfast with a Pakistani friend who lives near the military’s main primary school in Lahore, I was unable to get to him because all the roads through the Lahore Cantonment area were blocked by checkpoints. According to the soldiers manning the roadblocks, so fearful have the generals become of the Pakistani Taliban that they lock down much of Lahore every day in order to insure that their kids can get safely to school and back. They have also abandoned the use of military number plates on their cars, aware that these might attract the attention of Taliban suicide bombers.
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Overall, I sense that you have a combination of sympathy and optimism for Pakistan while I have little of either for that country.
Go ahead and give Pakistan every MRAP in Afghanistan and give Pakistan an additional 100 brand new MRAP vehicles. I think that it will be all be wasted until Pakistan gets serious about eliminating the Sunni militants in their midst. At the moment, I don’t think that they are able – willing to do that.
@bard207
I have Zero sympathy or optimism for Pakistan. Although I can possibly ‘see’ how one might ‘infer’ that. Personally I think the only reason Pakistan is ‘Holding Together’ is that no one ‘Group’ has attained the necessary ‘Critical Mass’ to over power the other ‘Groups.’ I surmise the number of ‘Groups’ of consequence to be somewhere around 5 to 8.
Judging from Pakistan’s ‘performance’ over the last few years your observation “I don’t think that they are able – willing to do that” is spot on.
I don’t pay much attention to “Dalrymple,” if any at all, particularly in light of his recent forays into ‘commenting’ on events. His views are the same recycled jaded pablum that have surfaced with sophomoric regularity since 9 11.
As long as Pakistan continues to do a bit more than “Window Dressing’ in those parts of the Western Pakistan beyond the reach of the Central Government I see no reason why the US shouldn’t continue providing the type of Military Aid that assists the Pakistani Military in their pacification efforts.