Reliable Sources Confirmed News That TTP Commander Mohmmad Hassan Killed by Pakistan Army

Commander Hasan, who belonged to Afghanistan’s Kabul city, was released from an Afghan jail some time ago.

The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) on Saturday said that they lost a senior commander, identified as Gul Hasan Afghani, in clashes with security forces in the North Waziristan tribal region.

TTP spokesperson Shahidullah Shahid said that Commander Hasan was killed in clashes with the Pakistan Army in the Boya area of the agency two days ago. Commander Hasan, who belonged to Afghanistan’s Kabul city, was released from an Afghan jail some time ago. Shahid said that the attack was jointly carried out by TTP’s Mehsud faction and the local Taliban and had inflicted “heavy losses on the security forces.”

“The Taliban fighters also captured some areas of the agency during the operation, and seized arms and other equipment,” he added. The TTP also released photographs of the funeral of their slain commander and their chief Maulvi Fazlullah led the funeral which took place at an undisclosed location. Security forces had launched the long-awaited military operation against the TTP and foreign militants in North Waziristan on June 15 after peace talks with the Taliban collapsed.

The military says forces, backed by fighter jets and gunships, have killed over 1,000 militants so far. The TTP spokesperson, however, denies the army’s statement and claims that the military operation faces a total “failure” and that the military’s information wing the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) is “trying to mislead the people through its favourite media.”

Shahid rejected the army’s statements on Taliban casualties, control over areas in North Waziristan, destruction of Taliban control and command system and the arrest of the TTP members behind the attack on educational activist Malala Yousafzai. The military spokesperson DG ISPR Major General Asim Bajwa had earlier said that a group of 10 Taliban militants has been captured in connection with the attack on Malala. He had added that the TTP chief had ordered the attack.

The Taliban spokesperson, however, said that the arrested suspects in connection with attack on Malala were never active Taliban members, adding that they may have been arrested during the 2009 operation in Swat valley and had been missing since then. “The Taliban central command system is fully secure and active and is successfully attacking key targets of Pakistan Army,” Shahid said.

He also claimed that the Taliban shot down a military fighter jet through an anti-aircraft missile in Shawal area. The TTP spokesperson also alleged that dozens of TTP detainees have been killed in fake encounters in Karachi. 

Source: defence.pk

Attack on Quetta Airbases

This is taken from The Express Tribune, August 16^th, 2014:

Lieutenant General Naseer Janjua showing weapons use by terrorists during attack on Khalid Base to Chief Minister Abdul Malik. PHOTO: ONLINE

So deep-rooted is the terrorist threat in our country that no one single action can demolish it. This was underscored by the attack that was carried out between the nights of August 14-15 on two airbases in Quetta by militants, armed with rockets, grenades and suicide vests. Rockets were fired at the Samungli and Khalid airbases, located within 12 kilometres of each other, as the militants, in what was quite evidently a carefully devised plan, fired rockets into them. Seven militants were killed, while seven security personnel were injured during the nine hours of fighting, led by the Anti-terrorism Force, to protect the bases. Quetta airport was also shut down. The attack, of course, follows a pattern we have seen before as other military installations and airports have come under attack by Taliban militants. 

 

COAS praises security forces for averting Quetta attack

While the security forces did well to prevent any actual penetration of the bases, the audacity and scale of the attack reminds us that the militants remain active and quite capable of striking, despite Operation Zarb-e-Azb. The military action in North Waziristan is obviously extremely significant, but on its own, it will not be enough to hold off the militants. We need to add more prongs to our strategy and use these collectively. This is especially true given that we face now a range of militant groups, who may — or may not — be operating under a single umbrella. In Balochistan, action against military targets inevitably leads to suspicions regarding the role of separtist groups. In the past, analysts have also warned of the danger of a nexus between them and Taliban-affiliated groups. The complexities of militancy in our country are many. The latest acts of violence in Quetta shows we are still a long way off from overcoming this menace. We need to think harder about how this can be achieved. Right now, terrorists have shown that they can strike in many places. Yes, security at key places has been tightened, but it is also imperative that militant outfits be defeated, so that our lives can return to something resembling normalcy without the sense of constant fear we currently confront.