Latest news with #Islamabad-based
Nikkei Asia
15-07-2025
- Climate
- Nikkei Asia
Pakistan's urgent, existential threat is climate change, not India
Monsoon rains arrive earlier than expected in Lahore on July 9. © Reuters Farhan Bokhari is an Islamabad-based foreign correspondent who writes on Pakistan and the surrounding region. Just two months after Pakistan emerged from a military clash with India that caught the world's attention, the country's changing weather pattern has reinforced a warning from the finance minister who cited climate change and a population surge to present an "existential threat" to its future. It was a timely view that underlined the biggest challenge faced by the South Asian country, notwithstanding tensions surrounding ties with Pakistan's next-door neighbor.
Al-Ahram Weekly
11-07-2025
- Politics
- Al-Ahram Weekly
Pakistani separatists kill 9 bus passengers: Govt - International
Militants abducted and shot dead at least nine bus passengers travelling through Pakistan's restive southwestern Balochistan province, government officials said Friday. Security forces are battling a rise in ethnic and separatist violence in impoverished but mineral-rich Balochistan, which borders Afghanistan and Iran. The militants boarded two buses on a major highway and checked passengers' identity cards before forcing nine people off the vehicles at gunpoint overnight on Thursday. "The terrorists forced the two passenger buses to stop on a highway and pulled nine passengers out. They took them in an area nearby and killed all of them," local government official Naveed Alam told AFP. The attackers specifically targeted people from Punjab, the country's most populous and prosperous province and a major recruitment base for the military. "The forces found the dead bodies all belong to different areas of Punjab," said Saadat Hussain, another senior government official. The Balochistan Liberation Front (BLA), a separatist group fighting the state, later claimed responsibility for the attack. The BLA has emerged as the biggest threat targeting foreign interests, security forces and Pakistanis from outside the province. Baloch separatists and rights groups say the military's heavy-handed counter-terrorism response to the insurgency has included widespread enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings. Balochistan is rich in hydrocarbons and minerals, but 70 percent of its 15 million inhabitants live below the poverty line. In March, the militant group was behind a deadly train siege with more than 450 passengers on board. Last year was the deadliest in a decade for Pakistan, with a surge in attacks that killed more than 1,600 people, according to Islamabad-based analysis group the Center for Research and Security Studies. Follow us on: Facebook Instagram Whatsapp Short link:
New Indian Express
11-07-2025
- Politics
- New Indian Express
At least nine bus passengers abducted, shot dead by militants in Pakistan
QUETTA: Militants abducted and shot dead at least nine bus passengers travelling through Pakistan's restive southwestern Balochistan province, government officials said Friday. Security forces are battling a rise in ethnic and separatist violence in impoverished but mineral-rich Balochistan, which borders Afghanistan and Iran. The militants boarded two buses on a major highway and checked passengers' identity cards before forcing nine people off the vehicles at gunpoint overnight on Thursday. "The terrorists forced the two passenger buses to stop on a highway and pulled nine passengers out. They took them in an area nearby and killed all of them," local government official Naveed Alam told AFP. The attackers specifically targeted people from Punjab, the country's most populous and prosperous province and a major recruitment base for the military. "The forces found the dead bodies all belong to different areas of Punjab," said Saadat Hussain, another senior government official. The Balochistan Liberation Front (BLA), a separatist group fighting the state, later claimed responsibility for the attack. The BLA has emerged as the biggest threat targeting foreign interests, security forces and Pakistanis from outside the province. Baloch separatists and rights groups say the military's heavy-handed counter-terrorism response to the insurgency has included widespread enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings. Balochistan is rich in hydrocarbons and minerals, but 70 percent of its 15 million inhabitants live below the poverty line. In March, the militant group was behind a deadly train siege with more than 450 passengers on board. Last year was the deadliest in a decade for Pakistan, with a surge in attacks that killed more than 1,600 people, according to Islamabad-based analysis group the Center for Research and Security Studies.
Gulf Today
03-07-2025
- Politics
- Gulf Today
Blast claimed by Daesh kills four in northwest Pakistan
An explosion in northwest Pakistan killed at least four local government officials and police Wednesday, an officer told the media, in an attack claimed by a branch of the Daesh group. "One senior government official, along with another government official and two police officers, were killed in the attack. Eleven people were wounded," said Waqas Rafiq, a senior police official stationed in Bajaur, a city near the border with Afghanistan. The officials were travelling in a car in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province when "the attack happened in a market in Bajaur city", Rafiq added. Hours later the Islamic State Khorasan (IS-K) group claimed to have detonated an explosives-laden moped that targeted the vehicle in which the officials were travelling. The deadly blast came four days after 16 soldiers were killed in the same province in an attack claimed by the Pakistan Taliban, a group which is very active in the area. Around 300 people, mostly security officials, have been killed in attacks since the start of the year by armed groups fighting the government in both Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces, according to the media. Last year was the deadliest in a decade for Pakistan, with a surge in attacks that killed more than 1,600 people, according to Islamabad-based analysis group the Center for Research and Security Studies. Pakistan has witnessed a sharp rise in violence in its regions bordering Afghanistan since the Taliban returned to power in Kabul in 2021, with Islamabad accusing its western neighbour of allowing its soil to be used for attacks against Pakistan -- a claim the Taliban denies. Agence France-Presse
Kuwait Times
02-07-2025
- Politics
- Kuwait Times
Blast kills four officials in NW Pakistan
BAJAUR: Local residents gather beside the wreckage of a vehicle after a blast in Bajaur, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, on July 2, 2025. -- AFP PESHAWAR: An explosion in northwest Pakistan on Wednesday killed at least four local government officials and police officers, a police official told AFP. 'One senior government official, along with another government official and two police officers, were killed in the attack. Eleven people were wounded,' said Waqas Rafiq, a senior police official stationed in Bajaur, a city near the border with Afghanistan. The officials were travelling in a car when 'the attack happened in a market in Bajaur city', Rafiq added. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the blast. It came four days after 16 soldiers were killed in the province in an attack claimed by the Pakistan Taleban, a group which is very active in the area. Around 300 people, mostly security officials, have been killed in attacks since the start of the year by armed groups fighting the government in both Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces, according to an AFP tally. Last year was the deadliest in a decade for Pakistan, with a surge in attacks that killed more than 1,600 people, according to Islamabad-based analysis group the Center for Research and Security Studies. Pakistan has witnessed a sharp rise in violence in its regions bordering Afghanistan since the Taleban returned to power in Kabul in 2021, with Islamabad accusing its western neighbor of allowing its soil to be used for attacks against Pakistan — a claim the Taleban denies. — AFP
