KARACHI: A senior policeman who had survived several assassination attempts was killed with three other people by a suicide bomber in Karachi Thursday, officials said, in an attack claimed by a Taleban faction.
The attack happened near a tailor’s shop in the old vegetable market in a neighborhood to the east of the city.
“The blast killed police official Shafiq Tanoli and three others and wounded 15 others including Tanoli’s three guards,” another senior officer Tanvir Ahmad Tunio told AFP.
He said the target was Tanoli, who had conducted a number of operations against militants and criminals and survived several attempts on his life in the past.
A local senior police official, Raja Umar Khitab, confirmed that it was a suicide attack.
Omar Khorasani of the Mohmand chapter of the Tehreek-e-Taleban Pakistan (TTP) said in a statement that his group were responsible, accusing Tanoli of killing “many of our associates.”
Mohmand is one of the seven lawless tribal districts along the Afghan border.
The Pakistani government is in talks with the TTP — the umbrella group for Taleban militants — to end their bloody seven-year insurgency, but the Mohmand chapter has rejected the peace process.
Karachi, a city of 18 million people which contributes 42 percent of Pakistan’s GDP, has been plagued for years by sectarian, ethnic and political violence.
Airstrike kills 16 in Taliban hideouts
In the lawless tribal northwest, the Pakistani military attacked Taleban hideouts with fighter jets and ground forces on Thursday and killed at least 16 suspected militants, officials said.
It was the first time the military is known to have used air strikes against militants since the Pakistani Taleban announced a cease-fire on March 1 to help peace talks.
The Taleban said last week it was ending the cease-fire, complaining of little progress in negotiations with the government. A series of militant attacks since then have killed seven people in the northwest.
The airstrikes hit mountainous areas of the Khyber tribal district, where the Taleban and the banned militant group Lashkar-e-Islam are active.
“First jet fighters were used early in the morning and then ground troops were sent to the area,” a senior security official in Peshawar told AFP on condition of anonymity.
“They are conducting a search and cordon operation and up to now at least 16 militants have been killed.”
Lashkar-e-Islam, led by warlord Mangal Bagh, is feared for kidnappings and extortion in Khyber, one of seven tribal districts along the Afghan border.
Another security official said the strikes targeted militants involved in bomb attacks in the northwestern town of Charsadda and on a fruit and vegetable market in Islamabad which killed 24 people.
Officials said ground troops also used heavy weapons to pound militant targets.
Independent verification of the death toll was not possible, as journalists are not allowed to enter the area.
Pakistan began talks with the Taleban in February to try to end their seven-year insurgency, which has cost thousands of lives.
Government and Taleban negotiators met in Islamabad on Tuesday to plan a fresh round of talks and to try to persuade the militants to begin another cease-fire, a Taleban negotiator said.
Since the Taleban began their campaign of violence in 2007, more than 6,800 people have been killed in bomb and gun attacks around Pakistan, according to an AFP tally.
