Pakistan:TERROR ATTACKS ON SECURITY FORCES

During the current week, two major terror attacks were carried out in the Central Punjab targeting the security forces. At least eight soldiers, including a policeman, were killed in an attack on a military camp over River Chanab near Wazirabad Industrial city. It was a training camp of the Pakistan Army and a unit is deployed to search body of the missing pilot who helicopter crashed recently. The terrorists targeted the military camp and used deadly weapons in shooting down seven soldiers and a police in the neighbourhood, also on security duty close to a bus terminal. According to preliminary reports, the terrorists were four in number and came on motorcycles early in the morning and fired indiscriminately on the troops killing seven soldiers at the spot and while flee from the scene, they also shot dead a policeman on security duty close to a bus terminal. After killing the soldiers, the terrorists fled from the scene. Later on, Tehrik Taliban Pakistan had claimed the responsibility for attacking the Army camp on River Chanab near Wazirabad. After long, it was the first terrorist attack on the Army position that is too in central Punjab which was rela5tively calm and peaceful. The selection and killing the troops is considered as an extension of the terrorist attacks from KPK to the Central Punjab. In another terrorist attack, nine police personnel were killed and 10 others injured when a group of armed people barged into the sleeping complex of the policemen in training in Achra Lahore, a densely populated area of the city. The terrorists were six or seven in number and they came on motorcycles and a car and they barged into the rooms where the policemen were sleeping in the early hours of the day. They first fired and killed people on the first floor and later entered the second floor their continued their killing spree before fleeing from the scene. The policemen were from Prison Department of the KPK and they were under training in the Federal Institute for training policemen in Lahore. Unfortunately, such a large number of trainee policemen were not provided security by the Punjab police. The terrorists easily entered the complex and killed 9 policemen and injured 10 others and fled. The police investigators were found blank on the motive or the group involved in the terror attack on the policemen in Achra residential complex. The IGP Punjab claimed that the terrorist groups coordinate their operation and help each other in carrying out killings. He cited many examples in support of this argument. Later in the day, the Tehrik Taliban Pakistan claimed the responsibility of killing the KPK prison staff in training. The Tehrik did not give reason why they choose the trainee policemen from KPK. Was it a revenge killing? They did not say anything. In any case, in both the major terror attacks, the Tehrik Taliban Pakistan had brought the war to Central Punjab from KPK and FATA where it is fighting the security forces and the Amn Lashkars of the local tribesmen in some tribal agencies. It is a red signal for the security establishment to contain the spreading violence of the Tehrik-i-Taliban in Central Punjab or in other areas of the country as it will have deadly effect on the national economy. The foreign investment had already stopped coming to Pakistan. Even foreigners are reluctant to visit Pakistan for the security environment. Now the investment from other countries will flee if the security environment for investment is not improved and security of life of the people is guaranteed. The Punjab Government should contain their friendly Taliban with whom they had very good relations and the Punjab Government refused to wipe out the terrorist camps and ammunition dumps established by the extremist elements on religious and sectarian groups.