PESHAWAR: The leader of the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) Hakimullah Mehsud on Saturday directed his militants in North Waziristan to abide by the peace accord struck by local Taliban chief Hafiz Gul Bahadur with the government for the maintenance of law and order in the area. “O mujahideen brothers! As you know that the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban under the leadership of Mullah Muhammad Omar Mujahid are engaged in jihad against the crusaders and infidels, and are supporters of each other in the ongoing holy war, the enemies do not want to see us united and disciplined against them and are being trying to divide us,” the TTP leader said in a pamphlet, a copy of which was available with The News. The TTP chief said it was binding on the local Taliban to abide by the agreement and decisions reached with the government for maintaining the law and order in North Waziristan. The News, Daily Times.
NOWSHERA: An unidentified attacker gunned down a staff nurse working at the District Headquarters Hospital (DHQ) here on Saturday, husband of the slain health worker and eyewitnesses said. Reporting the incident to the police, Sajawal Khan Khattak, husband of Farzana Kausar, said that his wife was about to board the pick-up van waiting outside their home in Hakimabad when a man wrapped in a shawl opened fire on her. “The man wielding a pistol shot my wife two times as she stepped out of home and was about to get on the van in which her colleagues were also waiting. She died on the spot,” Sajawal said. “We have no enmity,” he added. The accused fled the scene after committing the crime. The News, Dawn, The Nation.
BARA: Unidentified persons blew up a girls’ school in Sepah Spin Qabar area in Bara tehsil of Khyber Agency late Friday night, sources said. The sources said the blast at the Government Girls Primary School in Sepah Spin Qabar occurred late in the night, destroying the building. No one claimed responsibility for the blast. The News, The Nation.
LANDI KOTAL: Four persons including a security man were injured in separate incidents in Bara tehsil of Khyber Agency during the last twenty four hours. Sources said that sepoy Amir Khan was injured critically when militants fired at a checkpost in Ajali Nadi area of Shalobar. The inured soldier was shifted to a hospital in Peshawar for treatment. In Akkakhel area, two children received injuries when a mortar shell fell on the house of Hikmat Khan near Aziz Market while in Mandi Kas area Hazratullah was injured in a similar incident. In the same locality, two rooms of a private school were badly damaged when a mortar shell hit it. An overhead water tank at the house of Malik Waris Khan, a former minister of state, was also damaged when it was hit by a stray mortar shell.
Meanwhile, a Bara-based militants group has warned Zakhakhel tribe to either provide it with volunteers or leave the area. Sources said that militants affiliated with Lashkar-i-Islam (LI) distributed pamphlets and made announcements through loudspeakers in Shalobar area, asking Zakhakhels to send them volunteers or leave the area.
Meanwhile, army and Frontier Corps have been deployed in Akkakhel area of Bara owing to a surge in militant activities and security threats. Dawn.
WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama said on Saturday that the US goal in Afghanistan was “within reach” as he vowed to move ahead with a timetable to end the 11-year-old military campaign and focus on a broad domestic agenda. “We’ve pushed the Taliban out of their strongholds,” Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address. “And our core objective — the reason we went to war in the first place — is now within reach: ensuring that al-Qaeda can never again use Afghanistan to launch attacks against America.” The comments came after Obama wrapped up talks with visiting Afghan President Hamid Karzai, promising to speed up a transfer of lead security responsibility from Nato to Afghan forces this spring, in a sign that the pace of US troop withdrawal could quicken. The News, Dawn.
CHARSADDA: Fifteen people, including former provincial minister Bashir Khan Umarzai, sustained injuries in a roadside blast in Shaheed Killay in the limits of Umarzai Police Station on Saturday. It was learnt that former provincial minister for forests and Awami National Party’s leader Bashir Khan Umarzai was travelling in a motorcade after attending the hearing in the murder case of a former MPA of the then Pakistan People’s Party-Sherpao, Alam Zeb Umarzai, in a local court when an improvised explosive device planted on roadside went off. Fifteen persons, including Bashir Khan Umarzai, sustained injuries in the explosion. The News, Dawn, The Nation, Daily Times.
NOWSHERA: Unidentified persons blew up a gas supply line in Jehangira town on Saturday evening, sources said. The sources said explosive device planted with the gas supply line on Jehangira-Swabi road went off at 6:30pm, destroying the pipeline. Following the incident, the police and bomb disposal unit personnel reached the spot and collected pieces of evidence. A team of the Sui Northern Gas Pipeline Limited (SNGPL) headed by distribution engineer uhammad Aqil Paracha also reached the spot and stopped the leakage of gas. The News.
PARACHINAR: The doctors and paramedical staff of the Kurram Agency Headquarters Hospital in Parachinar Saturday protested the killing of Pakistan People’s Party leader Dr Riaz Hussain Shah and asked the government to arrest the killers forthwith. In this connection, a meeting of the doctors and paramedical staff was held, with Medical Superintendent Sabir Bangash in the chair. Speaking at the occasion, Sabir Bangash said a doctor’s priority is always to save human life but their killings would create gap among the doctors and patients. The News.
NAWAF KHAN, SHARAFAT ALI CHAUDHARY
