Pakistani Taliban claim responsibility for suicide bombing in western country
Pakistani Taliban (illustrative image).
Islamist militants, notably those of the TTP, have for years targeted polio vaccinators and police officers providing security.
AP - Ishtiaq Mahsud
Text by: RFI Follow
2 mins
This Wednesday, November 30, at least three people were killed and 23 injured in a suicide attack claimed by the Pakistani Taliban, two days after their announcement of the end of a ceasefire.
The attack targeted police officers accompanying a polio vaccination team in western Pakistan.
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A suicide bomber targeted a police truck preparing to escort a polio vaccination team in the city of Quetta;
the three dead are "
a policeman, a woman and a child
," Azhar Mehesar, a senior local police official, told AFP.
At least 23 people were also injured, he also said.
The attack was claimed by the Pakistani Taliban of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which announced on November 28 the end of the ceasefire which had been extended indefinitely in June 2022 to facilitate peace negotiations with representatives of the Pakistani state.
Conspiracy theories
Islamist militants, notably those of the TTP, have for years targeted polio vaccinators and police officers providing security.
According to the Pakistani press, more than 70 polio vaccinators have been killed since 2012, mainly in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (north-west), where the TTP is most firmly rooted.
Polio vaccination faces lingering suspicion in Pakistan, where conspiracy theories abound that the vaccines are part of a Western plot to sterilize Muslim children.
Another of these theories claims that vaccines contain pork fat and are therefore prohibited for Muslims.
The TTP justified the attack on Islamabad's failure to respect this truce and promised to launch retaliatory attacks "
throughout the country
".
The Quetta attack was thus carried out "
to avenge the death
" of one of the senior leaders and founding members of the TTP killed in August during the truce, the movement announced in a statement sent to AFP.
A distinct group from the Afghan Taliban but driven by the same ideology and a long common history, the TTP has killed in less than a decade, after its birth in 2007, tens of thousands of Pakistani civilians and members of the security forces.
Great comeback
Weakened from 2014 by intense operations by the Pakistani army, it has come back in force since the return to power of the Taliban in Afghanistan in August 2021, with the withdrawal of American forces after two decades of war.
Its attacks have thus increased by 50% since that date and have caused 433 deaths, according to the Pakistani PIPS Institute.
Pakistan accuses the Afghan Taliban of letting the TTP plan its attacks from their soil, which they have constantly denied.
(
with AFP
)
►Also read
: The Pakistani Taliban announce the end of a ceasefire never fully respected
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