School massacre aftermath: Security forces step up punitive strikes against militants

Brother of APS attack mastermind killed in FR Peshawar encounter; 21 militants dead in Tirah air raids

SHABQADAR/ ABBOTABAD/ PESHAWAR/ BARA:

Five militants, including a brother of the alleged mastermind of the December 16 terrorist attack on the Army Public School and College in Peshawar, were killed in an encounter with security forces in Frontier Region (FR) Peshawar late Friday night.

An official of the local political administration said that they have received from security forces bodies of five militants who were killed in a firefight at a cricket ground in the Koi Hassan Khel area of FR Peshawar.

“One of them has been identified as Mustafa alias Manoon, resident of Adezai and brother of Aurangzeb, alias Umar Mansoor alias Naray (slim), the Amir of the Darra Adam Khel chapter of the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Umar is the mastermind of the Peshawar school massacre,” the official told The Express Tribune.

Umar Mansoor, 36, was seen in a video posted on Thursday on a website used by the Taliban seeking to justify the school attack. “We will fight against you in such a style that you attack us and we will take revenge on innocents,” he said.  Another body has been identified as that of Hidayat alias Saleem, while identities of the remaining militants were not immediately disclosed.

“Coincidently, the encounter took place on the same ground where the militants had killed 23 Levies personnel after kidnapping them last year,” the official said, adding that this group had been on the run following the ongoing military operations. “The security forces decided to take on these militants after receiving intelligence information that they used the cover of the night for their movement.” Meanwhile, at least 21 militants were killed in fresh air strikes by military warplanes in the remote Tirah Valley of Khyber Agency on Saturday. The deadly air raids were carried out a day after 32 militants were killed in a ground operation also in Tirah.



Fighter jets bombed hideouts of militants from the Mangal Bagh-led Lashkar-e-Islam (LeI) extremist group early Saturday morning, a security official based in the region told The Express Tribune by phone. “Seven hideouts were flattened, leaving around 21 militants, including a key commander, dead.”

The official further said that the security forces have also launched operations to flush out militants from FR Peshawar and FR Kohat areas.

Army chief General Raheel Sharif flew to Khyber Agency on Saturday to meet frontline troops. “The operations will continue till the last terrorist is eliminated from our soil,” Gen Raheel said to SSG commandoes, according to the chief military spokesman Maj Gen Asim Saleem Bajwa. “Spirits [of the troops] were sky high,” he said on micro-blogging site Twitter.

Separately, the police and security agencies claimed on Saturday that they have arrested two aides of LeI chief Mangal Bagh from the urban limits of Abbottabad district. A cache of arms are ammunition was also recovered from the pair who, according to police sources, were wanted in connection with several terrorist attacks.

In other violence, a suspected militant, his relative and two security officials were killed in a shootout in the Michni area of Peshawar late Friday night.

The police and Frontier Corps were searching the house of suspected militant Syar Khan when he opened fire on them, according to police officer Abdul Rasheed Khan. As a result, SI Ishrat Yar Khan of the Elite Force and Lance Naik Meera Jan of the Swat Scouts were killed while Ziaullah and Dilfaraz Khan of the Swat Scouts were wounded.

Rasheed added that Syar was killed in the retaliatory fire while his relative Noor Nawaz Khan, who was visiting him, was also caught in the crossfire and died. Around a dozen suspects were also rounded up in the operation.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 21^st, 2014.