G-B suicide bomber kills 2 soldiers, wife and daughter

GILGIT/ KHYBER AGENCY: Two soldiers and two women were killed after a high-profile terrorist blew himself up to avoid arrest in the remote Darel Valley of Gilgit-Baltistan on Thursday.

Acting on an intelligence tipoff, security forces had laid siege to the house of a local militant commander, when the suspect blew himself up, killing his wife and a daughter as well. A suicide jacket and arms were seized from the house.

Hazrat Noor was said to be the commander of Pakistani Taliban’s Diamer faction. He was allegedly involved in attacks on foreign tourists, case investigators and passengers on the Karakoram Highway over the last few years.

“Security forces got intelligence information that Hazrat Noor was hiding in a house in the Smagal area of Darel,” said another security official. The raid sparked a sharp reaction from inside the house.

The suspect also reportedly opened fire at the forces from his hideout before detonating himself.

“The terrorist blew himself up to avoid arrest,” a security official told The Express Tribune. “Besides his wife and daughter, two soldiers were also killed in the blast.”

Diamer Deputy Commissioner Usman Ahmad also confirmed the casualties.

The incident comes two days after army chief Gen Raheel Sharif signed the death warrants of 13 hardcore militants, including one involved in the killing of foreign tourists on Nanga Parbat. The execution will be the first for a terror act in G-B.

Five militants killed

In the restive Khyber Agency, security forces repulsed an attack on a check post in Tirah Valley, killing five terrorists.

The military’s media wing said a group of militants had besieged the security forces at Dara Darmodrab in the early hours of Thursday. After a shootout between the soldiers inside the check post and the militants, five of the attackers were killed.

The security personnel retrieved the bodies and shifted them to a hospital in Jamrud. A search operation was also launched in the area to arrest their collaborators.

According to the political administration, the militants were identified as Sabir Jehanzeb and Saeed Hayat Shah. Both of them hailed from Jamrud. 

Published in The Express Tribune, March 18^th, 2016.