The Pakistan Taliban claimed a suicide attack that killed at least one police officer Friday in the country’s capital, the first such attack in the city for years.
Islamabad has largely been spared the low-level attacks carried out in Pakistan’s megacities of Lahore and Karachi, and also along the border areas near Afghanistan.
Senior police official Sohail Zafar Chattha said officers had been following a suspicious taxi occupied by a male driver and a woman passenger when he detonated a device inside the car.
“They were stopped and the long-haired man was asked to come out,” Chattha said at the scene.
“He came out, but quickly went back inside and pressed a button that blew up the car.”
He said the fate of the passenger was not certain, but a policeman was confirmed dead and six people were wounded — including four officers.
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) later claimed responsibility for the blast, saying the attack “on the enemies of Islam” was in retaliation for the recent killing of a senior member.
The group, which is separate from the Afghan Taliban but with a similar hard-line Islamist ideology, called off a stop-start cease-fire with the government in November.
Hajji Mohammad Saeed, 60, a retired government official living in the neighborhood where the attack happened, said authorities should end all negotiations with the TTP.
“They are taking advantage of this dialogue and causing violence.”
Pakistan was for a time plagued with almost daily bomb blasts across the country, but security vastly improved after a military crackdown that began in 2016.
Violence against security officials has risen in the northwestern border areas with Afghanistan over the past year — blamed on militant groups linked to the Pakistan Taliban.
Earlier this week, Pakistani defense minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif called for a fresh security operation against the TTP after suspected militants being held at a police station overpowered their captors and held them hostage for three days.
“Terrorism is on the rise again,” he said.
“There’s a spillover effect from the situation in Afghanistan and that’s affecting Pakistan, we have to launch this operation.”
Suicide bombing in Islamabad kills 2 suspects and policeman
A powerful car bomb detonated in a residential area in Pakistan's capital on Friday, killing two suspected militants and an officer, police said, raising fears that militants have a presence in one of the country’s safest cities.
At least three police officers and seven passersby were wounded in the bombing in Islamabad. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the explosion.
Friday's bombing happened 15 kilometers (about 9 miles) from the garrison city of Rawalpindi, home of the military and government spy agencies.
Police said in a statement that the blast happened when police officers spotted the car near a checkpoint and ordered the driver to halt for routine checking. Instead of stopping, its driver detonated explosives hidden inside. The driver who Pakistani Taliban claim was one of their fighters and a female passenger in the car were killed, Suhail Zafar Chattha, the deputy police chief in Islamabad told reporters at the scene.
TV footage showed a burning car as police officers cordoned off the area.
Residents said they saw policemen on motorcycles chasing a car and ordering a man inside the vehicle to come out.
Chattha confirmed that account, saying the suspect blew up the explosive-laden vehicle after being surrounded by police. He said the militants might have killed scores of people if they had managed to detonate the car bomb at another site in the city.
Senior police and government officials later attended the funeral of the slain police officer Adeel Hussain. Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah Khan also paid glowing tributes to Hussain and recommended a prestigious posthumous award for his bravery and for saving innocent lives.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif condemned the bombing and thanked the police.
“Police officers stopped the terrorists by sacrificing their blood and the nation salutes its brave men," Sharif said in a statement.
Mohammad Khalid Khurasani, the spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban or TTP, said in a statement one of the group's militants carried out the suicide attack to avenge the killing of a senior leader. Abdul Wali, widely known as Omar Khalid Khurasani, was killed in a roadside bombing in August in Afghanistan’s Paktika province. His death was a heavy blow to the militant group, who blamed Pakistani intelligence agents for the killing without offering any evidence or elaborating.
Pakistani Taliban have stepped up attacks on security forces since November, when they unilaterally ended a monthslong cease-fire with the country's government.
The latest violence comes days after several Pakistani Taliban detainees overpowered their guards at a counterterrorism center in northwestern Pakistan, snatching police weapons and taking three officers hostage.
On Tuesday, Pakistan’s special forces raided the detention center, triggering an intense shootout in which the military later said 25 detainees linked to the Pakistani Taliban were killed in Bannu, a district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and part of a former tribal region.
Three troops and at least three hostages were killed in that incident.
The government has since stepped up security across the country, based on intelligence reports that the TTP had dispatched fighters to carry out attacks at public places and police stations.
The Pakistani Taliban are separate but allied with the Afghan Taliban, who seized power in neighboring Afghanistan last year as U.S. and NATO troops withdrew after 20 years of war. Since then, top TTP leaders and fighters have been hiding in Afghanistan.
