‘Stopped their way’
Police here have fought Islamists for years — more than 2,100 personnel have been killed and 7,000 injured since 2001 — but never have they been the focus of militants’ operations as they are today.
“We’ve stopped their way to Peshawar,” assistant sub-inspector Jameel Shah of Sarband station, which controls the Manzoor Shaheed outpost, said of the militants.
Sarband and its eight outposts have suffered four major attacks in recent months and faced sniper fire with unprecedented frequency, according to police based there.
Killings of police in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa rose to 119 last year, from 54 in 2021 and 21 in 2020. Some 102 have been slain already this year, most in the mosque bombing but some in other attacks. Elsewhere, militants stormed a police office in Karachi on Feb. 17, killing four before security forces retook the premises and killed three assailants.
The TTP, known as the Pakistani Taliban, pledges allegiance to the Afghan Taliban but is not directly a part of the group that rules in Kabul. Its stated aim is to impose Islamic religious law in Pakistan.
A TTP spokesman, Muhammad Khurasani, told Reuters its main target was Pakistan’s military, but the police were standing in the way.
“The police have been told many times not to obstruct our way, and instead of paying heed to this the police have started martyring our comrades,” he said. “This is why we are targeting them.”
The military has conducted operations alongside the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa police and faced TTP attacks, with one soldier confirmed dead in the province this year, according to data released by the military’s public relations wing, which did not address questions from Reuters about military casualties.
In December, the TTP released a video purportedly recorded by one of its fighters from mountains around the capital, Islamabad, showing Pakistan’s parliament building. “We are coming,” said a note held by the unidentified fighter.
The TTP wants to show that its fighters can strike outside their current areas of influence, said Amir Rana, director of the Pak Institute for Peace Studies, an Islamabad-based think tank. While their ability may be limited, he said, “propaganda is a big part of this war and the TTP are getting good at it”.
