Terrorists using US war chest in K-P attacks

NATO left behind night vision goggles, thermal imagining devices at the time of Afghan pullout

PESHAWAR:

In an astounding development, it has come to the fore that terrorists in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa have started attacking the police personnel with the “most advanced weapons”, which were used by the United States during its operation in Afghanistan.

A few days back, two police officers were shot from several meters at a checkpost in Daraban tehsil, Dera Ismail Khan, using night vision guns and thermal weapons.

The assailants also recorded a video of the officers who were martyred in the attack using the latest gadgets.

A senior security officer in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa confirmed the use of US weapons and thermal guns in the attack, saying such armament was employed by the NATO forces and American soldiers in Afghanistan.

The US completed withdrawal of its forces from Afghanistan in August 2021, nearly 20 years after it had invaded the country in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

At the time of US leaving the country, most of the territories in Afghanistan were left with modern weapons.

These munitions are now being utilised in attacks on tribal areas, particularly on the police in Khyber- Pakhtunkhwa.

They are also being employed in the southern districts.

The improvised firearms used by the terrorists give them an edge to attack the law enforcement personnel from directions that normally go unnoticed.

It becomes extremely difficult for the police to guard themselves against the use of American weapons in the remote and mountainous terrain.

Another senior security officer maintained that mud-layered checkpoints in the tribal regions, including Dera Ismail Khan, Lakki Marwat, Bannu, Tank, and South Waziristan, pose a serious security risk to the police.

Currently, the police in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa are engaged in fighting with the terrorists despite not having the required resources to do so.

The provincial government needs to equip the law enforcement agencies with the state-of-the-art weaponry to deal with the miscreants with an iron fist.

Data acquired from the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa police shows that as the law and order situation in Afghanistan deteriorates the number of terrorist attacks in the province surge with a rise in assaults on the law enforcement personnel.

From January to October this year, miscreants carried out attacks in Peshawar, Malakand and other southern parts of the province in which around 100 policemen lost their lives in the line of duty.

Police authorities noted that compared to the last three years, the number of attacks and fatalities of the law enforcement agencies this year was the highest.

The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa police have alerted the provincial government about the terrorists’ use of American weaponry at the checkpoints that are feared to be attacked in sensitive areas.

Meanwhile, a letter has also been sent for the construction of more check posts and immediate release of funds.