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Arab News
01-07-2025
- Politics
- Arab News
Authorities impose 30-day restriction on movement of people, vehicles in restive Pakistani district
ISLAMABAD: Local administration has imposed a 30-day restriction on the movement of people and vehicles from dusk till dawn in Pakistan's North Waziristan district, following the killing of 13 Pakistani soldiers in a suicide attack. The suicide attack, claimed by Hafiz Gul Bahadur group of the Pakistani Taliban, also injured 29 people, including civilians, in the volatile district that borders Afghanistan, local government and police officials said on June 28. Since late 2022, Pakistan has struggled to contain a surge in militancy in its northwest, where the Pakistani Taliban, or the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), and other militant groups have frequently targeted security forces convoys and check-posts, law enforcers and government officials. There was a need to restrict all kinds of movement within North Waziristan in the interest of 'public safety, law and order, movement of security forces and [to] restrict the movement of outlaws,' according to the North Waziristan deputy commissioner's office. 'I... hereby impose a ban on all kinds of movement of individuals, vehicles and all forms of traffic within the territorial jurisdiction of District North Waziristan, including all major roads, bypasses, link roads, streets, public gathering areas, bazaars, business centers, playgrounds from dusk to dawn (just after Maghreb prayers all the night till the sunrise) to prevent any untoward incidents, ensure smooth public administration,' Deputy Commissioner Yousaf Karim said in a notification. The official requested public to comply with the order. 'Any person (s) found violating this order shall be liable for legal action,' read the notification issued on June 29. 'THIS ORDER shall come into force at once and remain in force for a period of 30 days from the date of issuance unless modified or rescinded earlier.' The North Waziristan district has long been a stronghold of the TTP. Authorities also imposed a curfew in North Waziristan, along with South Waziristan and Tank districts, in March this year. Pakistan has witnessed a sharp rise in violence in its regions bordering Afghanistan, with Islamabad accusing India of backing militant groups and Afghanistan of allowing the use of its soil for attacks against Pakistan. Kabul and New Delhi deny the allegation. Militant attacks in Pakistan more than doubled from 517 in 2023 to 1,099 in 2024. Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa remained the hardest-hit provinces, accounting for over 96 percent of attacks and fatalities.
The Print
01-07-2025
- Politics
- The Print
Pakistan suffers violence of its own making. West's refusal to learn is even more tragic
This incident – one of the deadliest single-day attacks on Pakistani security forces in recent months in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa – is emblematic of the persistent instability that has gripped North Waziristan, a region long regarded as a stronghold for militant groups such as the TTP. Claimed by the suicide bomber wing of the Hafiz Gul Bahadur faction of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the attack, at first glance, is but another episode in the grim ledger of the subcontinent's senseless bloodletting; yet to treat it as such is to miss the deeper, tragic direction of Pakistan's politics. This is the latest manifestation of a fatal logic that has long guided Pakistan's suicidal statecraft and self-delusion In the arid valleys of North Waziristan, where the dust hangs heavy and silence is often broken by the thud of helicopter blades or the distant crackle of gunfire, a convoy of Pakistani soldiers met their tragic end. Sixteen men, extinguished in a single assault by a suicide bomber's calculated violence. Despite repeated counterinsurgency operations and government pledges to restore peace, the area remains a flashpoint for insurgent violence. The latest assault reflects not only the resilience and adaptability of these militant networks but also the enduring challenges faced by Pakistan's security apparatus since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan. Also read: India didn't create Bangladesh. Shehbaz Sharif forgets how Pakistan sowed the seeds Pakistan: a study in contradiction The cycle of militant violence in North Waziristan is the reverberation of a deeper, historical dissonance – snowballing because of strategic miscalculations and unresolved grievances – that continues to shape, and perhaps distort, Pakistan's trajectory. Pakistan has always been a study in contradiction – a nation forged in the fires of British India's Partition, steeped in trauma and displacement, yet perpetually seeking coherence through the manipulation of identity and enmity. It is a militarised polity defined less by what it is than by what it is not – not India, not secular, not reconciled. In this desperate search for national cohesion, the architects of the state turned to the expedient tools of religious fundamentalism and proxy warfare. The attack in North Waziristan is thus the harvest of seeds sown over decades: a policy of nurturing militant groups as instruments of strategic depth, first against the Soviets in Afghanistan, then against India in Kashmir. Once tactically useful, these groups now turn upon their erstwhile patron in Rawalpindi with the cold logic of history's recurring ironies. Folly in governance is not merely an error; it is the deliberate pursuit of policies contrary to self-interest, even when their consequences are manifest and mounting. The Pakistani military's double game – proclaiming itself a victim of terror while abetting its architects – has produced a landscape where the boundaries between state and non-state, between friend and foe, have been blurred to the point of absurdity. The North Waziristan suicide bombing is thus not a rupture, but a fulfilment. The Pakistani state's own monsters, having tasted blood, now feast upon their creators without any shame or restraint. If Pakistan's duplicity is the proximate cause of its turmoil, the West's strategic myopia is its indispensable enabler. The American embrace of the Pakistani military during the Cold War and again during the War on Terror was animated not by trust, but by expedience – a willingness to overlook Islamabad's flirtations with jihadist ideology so long as those ideologies bled in directions favourable to Washington. Western diplomacy often operates on the dangerous assumption that alliances of convenience can be sustained without moral or strategic cost. It is this blindness – this transactional hubris – that allowed the Pakistani military to thrive in duplicity, to wear the mask of an ally while undermining the very goals it pretended to pursue. Also read: Pakistan's attempt to mobilise anti-Taliban leaders is misguided, dangerous Confront the monsters within The March 2025 attack by the Baloch Liberation Army on Jaffar Express, killing scores of innocent passengers, also offers a grim counterpoint to the North Waziristan carnage – a reminder that Pakistan's crisis is not merely religious or ideological. It is also ethnic, economic, and political. Long marginalised and brutalised, the Baloch have found in violence the only language Rawalpindi seems to understand. The grievances are not obscure: decades of resource extraction without benefit, political exclusion from the corridors of power, and the suffocating embrace of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which transforms Balochistan into a logistical backyard for Beijing while its people remain dispossessed. And yet, the state responds not with reform, but repression; not with dialogue, but with drone strikes and disinformation. The narrative of external enemies – India, the West, Zionists – is cultivated like a national crop, while the internal rot deepens. Amid this maelstrom, the promotion of anti-India hatred remains the Pakistani elite's most dependable tool of social control. As exemplified by the Pahalgam attack, proxy terror against India is not merely a matter of policy – it is the glue that binds a fractured polity, the narcotic that numbs the masses to their own dispossession. A nation that defines itself by perpetual grievance can never know peace, only escalation. What emerges from this picture is not simply chaos, but folly – of a state that, in seeking security through duplicity, has rendered itself insecure; of a society manipulated into perpetual mobilisation against imagined enemies, while the real threats fester within. Instead of confronting the internal rot, Islamabad went to ridiculous lengths to accuse New Delhi of orchestrating the attack through a proxy outfit – a claim India swiftly and contemptuously rejected. Pakistan's persistent attempts to externalise blame on every internal security failure only serve to expose its duplicity in combating terrorism. And as demonstrated by India's refusal to sign the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) joint statement after Pakistan and China blocked strong language on terrorism, the world remains complicit through its silence and convenience. India, ever the target, is vindicated in its warnings. Pakistan's tragedy is not that it suffers violence, but that it suffers violence of its own making. And more tragically, the West – having seen this play before – refuses to learn anything. The ghosts of past alliances, broken promises, and abandoned morals now haunt the corridors of global power, yet the lessons remain unread. Pakistan's present agony is the fruit of choices made in defiance of prudence and morality. For the West, especially the United States, the refusal to confront this duplicity will haunt them still – as surely as the ghosts of Kabul now haunt Washington. India, for its part, must remain vigilant. It faces not merely a hostile neighbour, but a neighbour at war with itself – a far more unpredictable, unreasonable, and dangerous adversary. The reckoning, when it comes, will not be confined to the mountains of Waziristan or the treacherous passes of the Hindu Kush. It will echo through the capitals of the world, a thunderclap of warning. In geopolitics, as in life, the wages of folly are always paid with interest. Vinay Kaura is Assistant Professor, Department of International Affairs and Security Studies, at the Sardar Patel University of Police, Security and Criminal Justice in Rajasthan. Views are personal. (Edited by Zoya Bhatti)
Arab News
30-06-2025
- Politics
- Arab News
UAE and Jordan condemn terror attack on Pakistani military convoy that killed 13 soldiers
LONDON: Authorities in the UAE and Jordan have strongly condemned a terrorist attack on a military convoy in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan in which 13 soldiers were killed and at least 24 people were injured. The Emirati Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent its condolences to the families of the victims, and all the people of Pakistan, following the 'heinous and cowardly attack,' along its best wishes for a speedy recovery of those who were injured. It added that the UAE firmly rejects all forms of terrorism and violence that undermine security and stability. Jordan's Foreign Ministry similarly condemned the attack and expressed its solidarity with Pakistan during this terrible time. A suicide bomber rammed a car packed with explosives into the military convoy on Saturday and it detonated near a bomb disposal vehicle. Of the 24 people who were injured, 14 are civilians. Armed group Hafiz Gul Bahadur, a faction of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack. It was one of the deadliest, single-day incidents in recent months targeting security forces in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
NBC News
30-06-2025
- Politics
- NBC News
Suicide car bombing in Pakistan kills 14 soldiers and injures 25 people
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A suicide car bombing in northwest Pakistan on Saturday killed at least 14 soldiers and wounded 25 people, including civilians, officials said. The attack targeted a military vehicle in North Waziristan around lunchtime despite a curfew across the tribal district to facilitate the movement of security forces, the intelligence officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the issue with the media. An initial investigation said 1,760 pounds of explosives were used in the assault, causing severe damage to houses in the area. The wounded were 15 soldiers and 10 civilians, including children, the officials said. Pakistan's military gave lower casualty figures, saying the attack killed 13 soldiers and wounded three civilians. It blamed the incident on rival India, without providing evidence. Footage of the blast in Khadi village showed bandaged children lying on the floor near shattered glass and debris. A Pakistani Taliban faction, the Hafiz Gul Bahadur group, claimed responsibility for the bombing. Northwest Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province is home to several outlawed militant groups that frequently attack security personnel. Pakistan blames Afghanistan for giving them haven, a charge denied by Kabul. In March, Pakistani analyst Abdullah Khan told The Associated Press that the Hafiz Gul Bahadur faction was 'more lethal' than the Pakistani Taliban and was competing with them. Khan, the managing director of the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies, also said there was a revival of banned organizations like Lashkar-e-Islam, which operates from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, contributing to an overall escalation of militant activity in Pakistan.
Saudi Gazette
30-06-2025
- Politics
- Saudi Gazette
Car bomb attack in Pakistan kills at least 13 soldiers
ISLAMABAD — A car bomb attack in Pakistan has killed at least 13 soldiers and injured civilians. Pakistani officials said a suicide bomber drove a vehicle packed with explosives into a military convoy in the north-western tribal region of North Waziristan, near the border with Afghanistan, on Saturday. Pakistan alleged that the militants behind the attack were backed by India, but Delhi quickly denied this. Dismissing Pakistan's accusation, Randhir Jaiswal, spokesman for India's ministry of external affairs, posted on X: "We reject this statement with the contempt it deserves." The attack has been claimed by a suicide bomber wing of the Hafiz Gul Bahadur armed group, a faction of the Pakistan Taliban. Pakistan's army, however, said the attack was carried out by militants backed by India, without providing evidence."In this tragic and barbaric incident, three innocent civilians including two children and a woman also got severely injured," the Pakistani army said in a Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the "cowardly act".Relations between the two nations have long been strained, but tensions deepened in April after a deadly attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir left 26 people blamed Pakistan for sheltering members of a militant group it said were behind the attack, and the incident brought the two nuclear-armed countries to the brink of another May, India launched a series of airstrikes, targeting sites it called "terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir".Pakistan denied the claim that these were terror camps and also responded by firing missiles and deploying drones into Indian hostilities continued until 10 May when US President Donald Trump announced that India and Pakistan had agreed to a "full and immediate ceasefire".Pakistan has witnessed a surge in terrorist incidents following the collapse of the ceasefire agreement between the government and the Pakistani Taliban in November 2022. — BBC
