Regional
TTP warn of more attacks against police after Karachi compound raid

Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) warned Saturday of more attacks against law enforcement officers, a day after four people were killed when a suicide squad stormed a police compound in Karachi.
The police are often used on the frontline of Pakistan’s battle with the TTP and are frequently a target of militants who accuse them of extra-judicial killings, AFP reported.
Last month, more than 80 officers were killed when a suicide bomber detonated an explosive vest at a mosque inside a police compound in the northwestern city of Peshawar, sparking criticism from some junior ranks, who said they were having to do the army’s work.
“The policemen should stay away from our war with the slave army, otherwise the attacks on the safe havens of the top police officers will continue,” Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) said Saturday in an English-language statement.
“We want to warn the security agencies once again to stop martyring innocent prisoners in fake encounters otherwise the intensity of future attacks will be more severe.”
On Friday evening, a TTP suicide squad stormed the sprawling Karachi Police Office compound in the southern port city, prompting an hours-long gun battle that ended when two of the attackers were shot dead and a third blew himself up.
Two police officers, an army ranger and a civilian sanitary worker died in the attack, officials said.
The tightly guarded compound in the heart of the city is home to dozens of administrative and residential buildings as well as hundreds of officers and their families.
Fierce gun battle
Interior minister Rana Sanaullah told Samaa TV the assailants entered the compound after firing a rocket at the gate before seizing the main Karachi Police Office building and taking refuge on the roof.
The sound of gunfire and grenade blasts echoed through the neighborhood for hours as security forces slowly made their way up five floors to end the siege.
The TTP emerged in Pakistan in 2007 and carried out a horrific wave of violence that was largely crushed by a military operation launched in late 2014.
But attacks — mostly targeting security forces — have been on the rise again and a shaky months-long ceasefire between the TTP and Islamabad ended in November last year.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has vowed to stamp out the violence, AFP reported.
“Pakistan will not only uproot terrorism but will kill the terrorists by bringing them to justice,” he tweeted late Friday.
Regional
Lashkar-i-Islam founder Mufti Shakir succumbs to injuries from Peshawar blast

Cleric Mufti Munir Shakir, the founder of the outlawed Lashkar-i-Islam, succumbed to injuries he received from a blast in Peshawar on Saturday, DAWN reported.
A statement from the police spokesperson said the incident took place in the vicinity of Urmur Police Station and Mufti Shakir was injured on his left foot in the blast. It said the other three injured in the incident were Khushal, Abid and Syed Nabi.
The statement added that personnel from the police, bomb disposal unit and Counter-Terrorism Department were present at the scene and evidence was being collected.
In a video message, Mohammad Asim, a spokesman for the Lady Reading Hospital (LRH), said: “Mufti Shakir was brought to LRH in critical condition and succumbed to his injuries,” adding that the hospital was in the process of handing over the body to his heirs.
Special Assistant to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister on Health Ehtesham Ali issued a statement on the matter, saying he was “deeply saddened” to hear of the development.
CM Ali Amin Gandapur condemned the blast and sought a report from the police authorities on the incident. The chief minister directed authorities to carry out the “necessary steps” to arrest the suspects behind the blast and expressed his best wishes for the speedy recovery of the injured.
CM Gandapur also directed the hospital administration to provide the best medical assistance available to the injured.
Lashkar-i-Islam — a Bara-based militant organization in Khyber tribal region led by Mangal Bagh — was banned in 2008.
A local cleric in Bara, Mufti Shakir formed the Lashkar-i-Islam in December 2004 after Sipah and Malikdinkhel tribesmen announced their full allegiance to him. However, the cleric was expelled from Bar Qambarkhel area after only six months owing to his extremist views and differences with Haji Namdar, another militant commander of the area.
Both Mufti Shakir and Pir Saifur Rehman were forced to leave Bara after a jirga of local elders gave a consensus verdict following bloody clashes between the supporters of the two in early 2005. Mangal Bagh, a bus driver-turned-militant was elevated to the position of amir (chief) of Lashkar-i-Islam in May 2005.
Pakistani security forces demolished the house of Haji Rabat and destroyed the FM radio station set up in a mosque after they started the first military operation against Lashkar-i-Islam in mid-2005.
Regional
Iraqi PM says Daesh leader for Iraq and Syria killed

The leader of Daesh in Iraq and Syria has been killed, Iraq’s prime minister said on Friday, describing him as “one of the most dangerous terrorists in Iraq and the world.”
Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said Abdallah Makki Muslih al-Rufay’i, also known as Abu Khadija, had been killed by Iraqi security forces, with the support of the U.S.-led coalition fighting Daesh, Reuters reported.
Former Daesh leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a caliphate over a quarter of Iraq and Syria in 2014 before he was killed in a raid by U.S. special forces in northwest Syria in 2019 as the group collapsed.
The U.S. Central Command said last July that the group was been attempting to “reconstitute following several years of decreased capability.”
The command based its assessment on Daesh claims of mounting 153 attacks in Iraq and Syria in the first half of 2024, a rate that would put the group “on pace to more than double the number of attacks” claimed the year before.
Regional
Blast in northwestern Pakistan mosque injures local Islamist party leader, three others

A blast tore through a mosque on Friday in northwestern Pakistan, police said, injuring an Islamist party leader and three others, including children.
Abdullah Nadeem, a local leader of the Jamiat Ulema Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) political party, was believed to be the target of the blast and had been hospitalised with serious injuries, said Asif Bahadar, a district police chief in South Waziristan. He said two children were among the injured.
It was not immediately clear who was behind the explosion.
Attacks have been escalating in Pakistan’s border regions with Afghanistan in recent months.
Last month, a suicide bomber killed six worshippers during Friday prayers at an Islamic seminary in northwestern Pakistan.
This week in southwestern Balochistan, separatist militants hijacked a train and held passengers hostage in a day-long standoff with security forces.
Pakistan has vowed to crack down on growing militancy and has said the militants are finding safe haven in neighbouring Afghanistan, a charge the Islamic Emirate denies.
(Reuters)
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