Police Academy In Pakistan Attacked By Gunmen; 48 Dead, 75 Injured

Hospital officials said on Tuesday more than 48 people were killed and 75 injured when gunmen attacked a Pakistani police training academy in the city of Quetta,.

Officials said around 200 trainees were posted at the facility when the attack happened late on Monday. Some of the trainees were taken hostage during five hour incident.

Quetta’s Civil Hospital senior doctor Wasim Beg said that forty-eight bodies have been taken to the hospital.

Most of the dead were police cadets.

Baluchistan province home minister Mir Sarfaraz Bugti had confirmed early Tuesday that five to six gunmen had assaulted a dormitory. The structure was within the training facility compound and the attack occurred as cadets rested and slept.

No group directly claimed responsibility for the attack. However, General Sher Afgun, one of the top military commanders in Baluchistan, told media that communications intercepted between the assailants and their handlers hinted they were from Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a sectarian militant group.

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi hails from the heartland Punjab province.

The militant group has a history of conducting sectarian attacks in Baluchistan, specifically against the minority Hazara Shias. It was not certain what purpose the group would have in storming the police academy, a home ministry official said.

The home ministry said military, police and paramilitary personnel arrived at the training center within 20 minutes of the attack. They launched a five-hour operation to find the perpetrators.

Monday night’s attack was the deadliest in Pakistan since a suicide bomber killed 70 people in an assault on mourners assembled at a hospital in Quetta in August.

The bomber attacked while a pack of mainly journalists and lawyers crowded into the emergency ward of the hospital to escort the body of a renowned lawyer who had been shot and killed in the city earlier in the day.

Well planned operation

Further, Monday night’s attack seemed well organized. Senior law enforcement agencies said that the attackers had fired at the police facility from five different points.

The assailants then stormed the center’s hostel where about 200 to 250 police recruits were resting, security officials said. Local media reported that there were more than three explosions at the scene.

Quetta has long been viewed as a base for the Afghan Taliban. Their leaders have regularly held meetings there in the past.

Until May this year, Haibatullah Akhundzada, the Afghan Taliban’s new leader, explicitly preached and taught at a mosque outside Quetta for 15 years. Mullah Akhtar Mansour, Akhundzada’s predecessor, was killed by a U.S. drone strike as he travelled to Quetta from the Pakistan-Iran border.

Baluchistan province has seen a lot of violence for nearly a decade now. Separatist fighters launch frequent strikes on security forces and the military hits back.

Militants, especially sectarian groups, have also been involved in campaigns of assassinations and suicide bombings of minority Shias.

The post Police Academy In Pakistan Attacked By Gunmen; 48 Dead, 75 Injured appeared first on Newsline.

India; Police Detain Pigeon with Hostile Note for PM Narendra Modi

Indian police detained a pigeon after finding that it carried a written warning message addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The bird was captured within the area of the heavily defended border with Pakistan.

Members of the Nation’s Border Security Force discovered the Pigeon at the City of Pathankot in India’s state of Punjab. This is also the location where militants based in Pakistan initiated a lethal attack on an airforce base in January.

In a telephone interview with AFP, Patahankot police inspector Rakesh Kumar said, “We took it into custody last evening.”

“The BSF found it with a note in Urdu saying something like ‘Modi, we’re not the same people from 1971. Now each and every child is ready to fight against India’,” Kumar added.

The last full-scale war that India fought with Pakistan was in 1971.

Kumar also said stated that the note was ostensibly signed the a Jihadist group based in Pakistan named Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). He folowed with “so we are investigating the matter very seriously”.

New Delhi believes the same rebel group recently attacked an army base in Kashmir, killing several soldiers. Tensions remain on a very high level due to that raid.

India’s retaliatory strike – simultaneous cross-border assaults by special operations troops on militant bases, severely enraged Islamabad.

In connection with the pigeon incident, Indian forces found the same type of messages in two balloons in Punjab.

Jail birds

This is not the first instance that birds became involved in the seemingly perpetual hostilities between the nuclear-armed neighbors.

Indian police held a pigeon last year that they suspected of being used as an instrument for spying by Pakistan. It was X-rayed to spot any hidden surveillance equipment.

Furthermore, in 2013, soldiers found a dead falcon with a small camera attached. In 2010, another pigeon was also detained for being suspected spying.

The post India; Police Detain Pigeon with Hostile Note for PM Narendra Modi appeared first on Newsline.

Militants Strike Anew on Indian Army Base in Kashmir Killing One and Wounding Another

At least six militants attack another Indian army base, north of Kashmir on Sunday. Ensuing firefight resulted in the death of one border guard and has wounded another. The attack came just barely two weeks after a similar attack that killed 19 Indian soldiers.

Militants attacked the base at around 10:30 pm local time (1700GMT).  Firefight between the militants and the Indian units erupted after the militants tried to enter the base. The army base houses the 46^th Rashtriya Rifles in Baramulla as well as a unit of the Border Security Force.

Baramulla Superintendent of Police Imtiyaz Hussein said that the militants have reached the camp by boat through the river that passes through the town.

The militants had escaped as “they fled under the cover of darkness,” according to Hussein.

After the attack, India sent in the 4^th Para Special Forces to Baramulla. Ground and air operations continued till the morning to secure the camp.

Baramulla is a district capital located on the road from Srinagar. The area is near the frontier settlement of Uri where the first attack that killed 19 Indian soldiers happened.

India’s Retaliatory Strike

According to India, the armed forces had launched “surgical strike” last Thursday against identified militant camps in Pakistan. Reports say that the attack on the Pakistani side of the Line of Control (LoC) inflicted heavy casualties.

Pakistan on the other hand has denied of any attack claimed by India.

India’s cross-border raid has raised international fears that the military action could lead to an armed escalation. India and Pakistan both has nuclear capabilities and has been at arms against each other over Kashmir for nearly 70 years now.

Pakistan said that the national security advisers of both countries are in contact to attempt to pacify the situation on the LoC.

The post Militants Strike Anew on Indian Army Base in Kashmir Killing One and Wounding Another appeared first on Newsline.

Cooler Heads Prevail Amid Rising Tension Between India and Pakistan

War between two nuclear capable nations is what apocalyptic movies are made up off. However, this time, the threat of nuclear war looms not from the usual suspects between the US and Russia or from China for that matter, but between two warring countries fighting over their border.  The fight is between India and Pakistan.

The two nation have already clashed four times since the British relinquished its control over India in 1947. Three of the skirmishes were in Kashmir, over the Himalayan region. New Delhi and Islamabad are both claiming the entirety of the region. This resulted in a massive military buildup, which makes Kashmir one of the most militarized in South Asia. The two nation is divided by a de facto border known as the Line of Control (LoC). Since both countries have nuclear capabilities, a potential apocalyptic collision is a possible horrifying scenario.

World attention has been focused on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi since the attack on the Indian military outpost on Sept 18. Four gunmen were able to cross the LoC and killed eighteen soldiers in the Kashmir town of Uri. The attack is the worst of its kind in more than two decades. Pakistan rejects India’s presumption that the gunmen came across the LoC from the Pakistan side of the border.

Clamor for a strong response is growing among the people, as well as with close allies of the Prime Minister. Ram Madhav of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have upped the ante with a war-like rhetoric. He said that the days of Indian restraint is over. “For one tooth, the complete jaw. If terrorism is the instrument of the weak and coward (sic), restraint in the face of repeated terror attacks betrays inefficiency and incompetence. India should prove otherwise.”

Indian Media has also demanded that the country to show that it will not take the murder of 18 soldiers sitting down. The uncertainty is growing on what will be the next move by the Indian government following the Uri attack.

Last weekend, Prime Minister Modi gave a speech that had the world breathe a sigh of relief, at least for the time being. Modi is stepping up efforts to pressure Pakistan diplomatically rather than the use of military force. At a BJP meeting in southern India, Modi said. “I want to tell the people of Pakistan, India is ready to fight you,” he added. “If you have the strength, come forward to fight against poverty. Let’s see who wins. Let’s see who is able to defeat poverty and illiteracy first, Pakistan or India.”

Experts believe that Modi’s approach is a result of India recognizing the downside of a military confrontation. India’s growing economy which has one of the fastest growth in the world, would have adverse effect and would definitely pull down their sustained growth. Happymon Jacob, an expert from Delhi’s Jawaharla Nehru University stated. “Having gone through some discussion, the government of India has come to the conclusion that you can only escalate this diplomatically and politically, which is exactly what they are doing.”

Ashok Malik, a senior member at the Observer Research Foundation think tank sees India’s situation as volatile. The Prime Minister domestically faces pressure “to be seen to be doing something in response to this attack.”

On the global scale however, India needs to build “an even stronger case against Pakistan and emphasize that [terrorism linked to] Pakistan is a challenge not just for India but also the rest of the world.”

Adding Diplomatic Pressure

India also withdrew from the upcoming summit for the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation. The regional meeting will be in Islamabad. This is to add to the diplomatic pressure India is currently undertaking on Pakistan.

Although the world can sleep better with Prime Minister Modi’s approach, the possibility of a military confrontation will always be an available option.  Malik said. “I don’t think Modi has given up on the military option for the remainder of his term [in office, which expires in 2019].”

The post Cooler Heads Prevail Amid Rising Tension Between India and Pakistan appeared first on Newsline.