The attack, claimed by the Pakistani Taliban, killed 100 people in a mosque within the Peshawar police headquarters. For the local police, the attack was committed in retaliation for police operations against armed Islamist groups. The country is facing an upsurge in insecurity and attacks on police forces.
Around 300 to 400 police were gathered on Monday January 30 at a mosque inside a normally heavily guarded perimeter of Peshawar, when the explosion occurred at the time of noon prayer. The government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, of which Peshawar is the capital, announced that the latest death toll was 100 dead and 221 injured. According to Interior Minister Ranah Sanaullah, the attack killed 97 policemen and three civilians, and 27 injured are still in critical condition.
” This attack, which occurred on Monday, is reminiscent of the one that was carried out against a school attended by children of soldiers in December 2014still in Peshawar by the way, and which had caused 150 deaths “recalls Gilles Boquerat, researcher at the Foundation for Strategic Research, at the microphone of Heike Schmidt of international service.
For him, this attack was followed by the adoption of a national action plan aimed at putting an end to the presence of armed groups on Pakistani soil: “ We are on the front line “in this fight against armed Islamist movements” and that’s why we were targeted Peshawar police chief Muhammad Ijaz Khan told AFP.
Monday’s attack is proof that this plan failed to achieve its goals: ” Since in November 2022, the Pakistani Taliban movement ended the ceasefire that had been agreed earlier, there has been an upsurge in attacks against Pakistani police and military forces. », continues Gilles Boquerat.
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The Pakistani Taliban, brothers in arms with the Afghan Taliban
The pakistani taliban claimed responsibility for this attack. But what links do they have with the Taliban in Afghanistan? And do they now have more room for maneuver thanks to the departure of the Americans from Afghanistan?
” The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the movement of the Pakistani Taliban, which was created in 2007, in opposition to President Musharraf’s decision to ally with the United States in the war against terrorism, had been fought by the Pakistani military forces at the cost of many casualties among the Pakistani military. Pakistan had witnessed a decline in terrorist attacks over the years. But it is true that since the return of the Taliban to power in Kabul in August 2021, the Pakistani Taliban have experienced a resurgence, supported in part by the Afghan Taliban, explains this researcher at the Foundation for Strategic Research.
The Pakistani and Afghan Taliban rubbed shoulders, were brothers in arms, for years and years, when there was a Western presence in Afghanistan. The Pakistani Taliban have a number of demands, including reversing the incorporation of tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. ” So there is a connivance of interests between the Taliban that we see in Kabul and the Pakistani Taliban movement on the idea that this border fixed more than a century ago has no reason to exist. »
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(and with AFP)