Militants wearing suicide vests stormed a Pakistani police academy in the southwestern city of Quetta overnight, killing 61 people, mostly police cadets and recruits, and waging a ferocious gunbattle with troops that lasted into early hours Tuesday.
The four-hour siege is one of the deadliest attacks on Pakistan’s security forces in recent years also wounded 123, mainly police trainees but also some paramilitary troops, according to Wasay Khan, a spokesman for the elite Frontier Corps. Some of the wounded were reported to be in critical condition.
The assault caught many of the recruits asleep in their dorms and forced cadets and trainers to jump off rooftops and run for their lives to escape the attackers.
Pakistani troops responding to the assault said it was over after all three suicide bombers involved in the attack were killed one was gunned down while two others blew themselves up.
Later Tuesday, conflicting claims of responsibility emerged. The Islamic State group, which is waging war in Syria and Iraq where it has declared a self—styled caliphate, posted a claim on the group’s media arm, the Arabic—language Aamaq news agency. It said three IS fighters killed 60 police recruits in Quetta but the claim was not confirmed by Pakistani officials and IS did not offer any previously unknown details about the assault.
Earlier, a little—known breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, known as the Hakimullah group, also issued a statement claiming responsibility for the attack. Pakistani officials, doubting the group’s capabilities in staging such a coordinated and spectacular assault, also could not confirm that claim.
While most of the casualties were cadets and others from the academy, some of the army personnel who responded to the assault were also among those killed, said Shahzada Farhat, police spokesman in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province.
The attack began at 11-30 p.m. on Monday, said Baluchistan Home Minister Sarfraz Bugti, with three militants shooting and killing a police guard at the watch tower before storming into the academy, located on the city’s outskirts.
This war isn’t over, says Pakistan
Pakistan’s Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said on Tuesday that the country would continue to fight terrorists.
Speaking after the terror attack on a police training academy in Quetta, Balochistan, which killed 61 people, Mr. Khan said: “This war isn’t over. The enemy is weakened, but not eliminated.”
Balochistan officials had earlier received “intelligence reports that some terrorists have entered the Province” but had no indications about possible targets.
Security tightened in city
“We had tightened security, which is why they could not do it in the city and chose a target on the outskirts,” said Balochistan’s Chief Minister Sanaullah Zehri.
About 700 cadets, trainees, instructors and other staff were inside the academy when it was attacked.
Maj. Gen. Sher Afgan, head of the Pakistani paramilitary force which is primarily responsible for the Province, claimed the attackers had received instructions from commanders in neighbouring Afghanistan.
He said they were most likely from the banned Lashker-e-Jhangvi, which is affiliated with al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Afghanistan condemned the attack and dismissed Pakistan’s allegations that the assault was planned from bases inside Afghanistan. “Afghanistan is the biggest victim of terrorism and denounces all terrorist attacks,” said Mohammad Haroon Chakhansuri, spokesman for Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.
In a separate statement, Mr. Ghani also condemned the attack, saying that “terrorism is a threat throughout the region, which is reflected in the brutal act today in Quetta”.
Pakistan maintains that militants fleeing army operations in the tribal regions regularly escape across the border, finding safe havens inside Afghanistan.
[Source:-The Hindu]
