Pakistan to ask Afghanistan to hand over mastermind of Dasu attack — FM Qureshi

Pakistan’s foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi (C) is addressing a press conference in Islamabad on August 12, 2021. (AN Photo)

• The Pakistani foreign minister claims the attack that killed nine Chinese workers in July was planned in Afghanistan
• A senior official of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Counter Terrorism Department says all local facilitators of the attackers have already been arrested

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said on Thursday a recent attack on Chinese workers in his country was planned in Afghanistan, adding that his government had identified the individuals who orchestrated the incident and would ask the administration in Kabul to hand them over.
The foreign minister was referring to a blast on a bus on July 14 that killed 13 people, including nine Chinese nationals, who were working on the Dasu dam project in Upper Kohistan.
“Afghanistan’s land was used in concocting the [the Dasu] plan,” he said while addressing a news conference in Islamabad. “Pakistani law enforcement agencies have identified the planners and executioners of the attack.”
He added that Pakistan was going to ask “the Afghan government to arrest and hand over the identified terrorists,” adding that his administration hoped that the neighboring country would cooperate with it.
Qureshi maintained that a proscribed militant outfit, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), had carried out the attack on the instructions of India’s Research and Analysis Wing and Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS).
“Our investigation agencies have identified the whole network and arrested all of their facilitators in Pakistan,” he said, adding: “The three main planners [of the attack] are still in Afghanistan."
The foreign minister said officials in his country had reviewed the footage of 36 CCTV cameras along with the 1,400-kilometer route that the bus had gone through.
“Their [the militants'] real target was Diamer Basha Dam which they could not hit. That’s when they decided to attack the Dasu project,” he said.
Qureshi said the Chinese were fully satisfied with Pakistan’s investigation.
“The [RAW-NDS] nexus cannot bear China and Pakistan's growing cooperation and increasing Chinese investment in this country,” he said, adding that all projects under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor would continue and their security would be beefed up.
A senior official of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) Javed Iqbal, who also briefed the media, said about 100 to 120 kilograms of “super explosive” was used in the attack.
“Tariq, Muawiya and Irfan alias Fan, who belong to TTP, planned the attack on the instructions of NDS and RAW in Afghanistan,” he said.
The CTD official claimed Tariq travelled to Pakistan from Afghanistan to conduct the attack before returning to the neighboring country after the incident.
Referring to his facilitators in Pakistan, who he said had already been arrested, Iqbal added:
“A man named Hussain bought a car from Swat in November 2020 and handed it over to Tariq on the instructions of Ahad who lived in Karahi. Tariq then gave that vehicle to Khalid alias Sheikh who was the alleged suicide bomber,” he informed.
“We had found the parts of the car used in the incident,” he added. “The finger and thumb of the alleged suicide bomber were also recovered from the site, and we did a forensic and chemical analysis of them.”