Vengeful Taliban: Brazen attack on security forces in Lakki Marwat

13 security personnel, 11 civilians killed in the raid on army-FC camp; security forces claim killing 12 attackers.

SERAI NAURANG:

Taliban attacks are growing, in both intensity and frequency.

On Saturday, over a dozen insurgents fired a barrage of rockets at a camp of security forces in a southern district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa before attempting to storm it. At least 24 people – 13 security personnel and 11 civilians – were killed in the audacious attack in the Irrigation Colony, north of Serai Naurang city in Lakki Marwat district.

Security officials claimed at least 12 militants were also killed in the attack on the camp jointly manned by the Pakistan Army and the paramilitary Frontier Corps.

The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) said the attack was in retaliation for last month’s US drone strike in North Waziristan Agency in which two militant commanders were killed.

Some militants fired a volley of rockets at the main entrance of the camp, while others tried to force their way into the camp from the backside, a security official told The Express Tribune. The attack started at 3:45am and subsequent crossfire continued till 10am, he added. “Thirteen security personnel and 11 civilians were killed in the attack.”

Another official said the civilians were killed when one of the attackers, wearing suicide vest, ran into a house as security forces attempted to repel the attackers.

“A suicide bomber entered a nearby house in the Irrigation Colony and blew himself up. Four children, three women and four men were killed there,” Nisar Ahmed, a senior government official, told AFP. He said four houses were also damaged in the attack. “The explosion damaged four houses in the colony. Civilians who were killed in the attack were residents of these houses,” he said.

However, the official who spoke to The Express Tribune said the civilians were killed when the attackers broke into the houses near the camp and opened random fire. After the attack was repulsed, security forces found four bodies of militants – two of them had suicide bomb belts on them, the officials added.

“Security forces shifted four mutilated bodies to the Tehsil Headquarters Hospital (THQ) for autopsy. We were asked to bury the bodies after medics took samples for DNA tests,” a Town Municipal Administration official told The Express Tribune, requesting anonymity. “From their features, they seemed to be foreigners,” he said of the bodies.

TTP spokesperson Ehsanullah Ehsan, who claimed responsibility for the attack, denied the 12 militant casualties, saying they had sent only four suicide bombers.

“We sent only four suicide bombers to attack the camp. We attacked it to avenge the killing of two of our friends in a recent drone strike,” he told Peshawar-based journalists by phone. “Pakistan Army and security forces provide assistance to the US for drone strikes. So, we are taking revenge for their cooperation with the US.”

The dead civilians were shifted to the THQ where they were identified as Mir Saleh Khan Patwari, Attaullah Shah, Fidaullah Shah, Toti Jana Bibi, Sumbal, Mehwish, Nazo, Zeeshan, Din Muhammad, Inshallah and Farah Bibi. The casualties of security forces were ferried to Combined Military Hospitals (CMHs) in Bannu and Peshawar.

In a subsequent search operation, security forces claimed they detained several suspects and shifted them to an undisclosed location for interrogation.

Later in the evening, two security personnel – including a commissioned officer – were killed in a remote controlled bomb blast in Upper Orakzai Agency.

Suspected militants detonated the roadside bomb when a security forces patrol walked past in the Ghunda Mela area of Dabori around 5.30pm, said an official of the political administration. Two personnel – Captain Hasnad Ali and Subedar Nabi – were killed and as many injured in the attack. (With additional input from Agencies)

Published in The Express Tribune, February 3^rd, 2013.