Sifwat Ghayur, chief of the Frontier Constabulary in the lawless Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region, formerly known as the Northwest Frontier Province, has been killed in a suicide bombing attack while he sat in his truck in busy traffic in downtown Peshawar. His three bodyguards also died in the attack 4 August.The killer, reportedly a teenage boy, ran up to the stopped vehicle and blew himself up. Three different militant groups claimed responsibility for the death.
Ghayur was fearless, honest to a fault and a tireless opponent of the militant Islamic groups that are wracking Pakistan’s border area with Afghanistan. “This is a great loss,” said a provincial official. “He was the best among the best.”
Pakistan awarded him its highest medal for bravery on 5 August and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial government observed a day of mourning.
Links to other sites: ABC News, Central Asia Online, Dawn
Four foreigners are reportedly among seven people killed when a bomb exploded near a school in Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province, but initial reports are contradictory. The bomb may have hit a convoy, in the Lower Dir district, traveling to the opening of a girls school but other reports say the blast came during the opening ceremony of the school. Two of the dead may have been schoolgirls, but it seems clear that many of the nearly 50 injured were students. The BBC reports that the four Westerners killed were aid workers, citing police, but other sources say there were three Westerners and they may have been US soldiers. The district is a Taliban stronghold.
The latest in a string of attacks in Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province that have targeted military, police and intelligence services took place early Friday 13 November in Peshawar, where a gunfire was followed by a bomb blast at the Inter-Services Intelligence’s provincial headquarters. Ten people died, at least 60 are wounded and several are believed to be buried under the rubble of the building, according to government officials. In another attack in the province’s Bannu District a suicide bomber drove into a police station and killed six people, injured 23.
Gunmen have attacked police facilities in the eastern city of Lahore, Pakistan Thursday 15 October. Several people are reported dead but the exact number is unknown, and there are unconfirmed reports by local television of hostages held inside the Federal Investigation Agency building. Gunmen are also said to have attacked another nearby police training site.
Eight people including the driver also died Thursday morning when a man rammed a car into a police station in Kohat district, Northwest Frontier Province, south of Peshawar. BBC, CNN
Fifty-five Taliban rebels are said to have been killed Saturday when Pakistan’s military took the offensive against the militants in the Swat region of the North West Frontier Province. The government sent helicopter gunships and airplanes against stiff resistance. Hundreds of thousands of civilians are still trapped in the area and unable to leave, according to the government. Reuters
