Senior cop gunned down in Karachi

KARACHI: A lone gunman on a motorbike shot dead a senior Pakistani police officer in the volatile southern city Karachi on Friday, police said, the third in an sudden spate of killings targeting senior officers in the city.
“The killing of three senior ranking officers in 15 days is quite unusual,” a senior police officer requesting not be named told Reuters.
“Earlier, low-ranking policemen like constables and assistant sub-inspectors were being targeted, but now the pattern is changing.”
It was unclear who was behind the shootings, or even if they are linked. Friday’s killing of Superintendent Ejaz Haider was claimed by both a Taleban spokesman and a Twitter account purporting to be from a breakaway group of Pakistani militants who have sworn allegiance to Islamic State, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadi communications.
Neither claim could be immediately verified. Pakistani authorities doubt that Islamic State has operational links with Pakistani militants.

Airstrikes kill 17 militants
Pakistan’s military said its warplanes have pounded militant hideouts in a troubled tribal region along the Afghan border, killing at least 17 suspected militants.
In a statement released Friday, the military said the airstrikes were carried out the night before in Datta Khel area of North Waziristan.
The military said there were some foreigners among the 17 killed but provided no further details on their nationalities or identities. Reporters are barred from Pakistan’s tribal regions and it is impossible to independently verify information from there.
North Waziristan is one of seven tribal regions where local and foreign militants have found safe havens for years. They use the hideouts in the mountainous border area to launch attacks on both sides of the border.