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Pakistan Taliban kill at least 19 as they storm university
Islamist Taliban militants stormed a university in volatile northwestern Pakistan on Wednesday, killing at least 19 people and wounding dozens as the army hunted for any gunmen still holed up on the campus, officials said.
A security official said the death toll could rise to as high as 40 as army commandos cleared out student hostels and classrooms. A spokesman for the rescue workers, Bilal Ahmad Faizi, said 19 bodies had been recovered including students, guards, policemen and at least one teacher, named by media as chemistry professor Syed Hamid Husain.
Many of the dead were apparently shot in the head execution-style, TV footage showed.
Umar Mansoor, a senior Pakistani Taliban commander and the mastermind of a student massacre in December 2014 at a military-run school in nearby Peshawar, claimed responsibility for the assault and said it involved four of his men.
A senior security officer at the scene told Reuters 90 percent of the campus had been secured after a three-hour gunfight with the militants ended, and that 51 people were wounded. Four gunmen were killed.
The militants, using the cover of thick, wintry fog, scaled the walls of the Bacha Khan University in Charsadda, northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, before entering buildings and opening fire on students and teachers in classrooms and hostels, police said.
Students told media they saw several young men wielding AK-47 guns storming the university housing where many students were sleeping.
“They came from behind and there was a big commotion,” an unnamed male student told a news channel from a hospital bed in Charsadda’s District Hospital. “We were told by teachers to leave immediately. Some people hid in bathrooms.”
The gunmen attacked as the university prepared to host a poetry recital on Wednesday afternoon to commemorate the death anniversary of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a popular ethnic Pashtun independence activist after whom the university is named.
RUMOURS OF ATTACK
Vice Chancellor Fazal Rahim told reporters that the university teaches over 3,000 students and was hosting an additional 600 visitors on Wednesday for the recital.
Police inspector Saeed Wazir said 70 percent of the students had been rescued.
“All students have been evacuated from the hostels, but militants are still hiding in different parts of the university and some students and staff are stuck inside,” he said before the firing had stopped, adding that it was unclear how many gunmen were involved.
Television footage showed military vehicles packed with soldiers driving into the campus as helicopters buzzed overhead and ambulances lined up outside the main gate while anxious parents consoled each other.
Shabir Khan, a lecturer in the English department, said he was about to leave his university housing for the department when firing began.
“Most of the students and staff were in classes when the firing began,” Khan said. “I have no idea about what’s going on but I heard one security official talking on the phone to someone and said many people had been killed and injured.”
Several schools had closed early on the weekend around Peshawar after rumors circulated of a possible attack.
Pakistan, which has suffered from years of jihadist militant violence, has killed and arrested hundreds of suspected militants under a major crackdown launched after the massacre of school children in December 2014 in Peshawar.
The school attack by six Pakistani Taliban gunmen hit a raw nerve in Pakistan and was seen as having hardened Pakistan’s resolve to fight militants along its lawless border with Afghanistan.
“We are determined and resolved in our commitment to wipe out the menace of terrorism from our homeland,” Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said in a statement after Wednesday’s attack.
By: Reuters
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US report cites ‘significant deterioration’ in Afghan women’s rights last year
There was significant deterioration in women’s rights in 2023 due to edicts that further restricted access to education and employment, with a net result that women were increasingly confined to domestic roles, the U.S. State Department said in its annual human rights report.
Killings, severe physical abuse, harsh and life-threatening prison conditions, unjust detentions and abductions, restrictions on freedom of expression and media freedom, restrictions on internet freedom, restrictions on political participation; corruption and child recruitment were among human rights issues cited in the report.
It said that the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) did not purport to formally change existing laws as legislated by the Republic-era government; however, they promulgated edicts that contradicted those laws and were inconsistent with Afghanistan’s obligations under international conventions.
“This year’s report also captures human rights abuses against members of vulnerable communities. In Afghanistan, the Taliban (IEA) have limited work opportunities for women, shuttered institutions found educating girls, and increasing floggings for women and men accused of, quote, ‘immoral behavior,’ end quote,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.
IEA’s spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, in reaction to the report, said that the people of Afghanistan are Muslims and their rights are defined and ensured according to Islamic laws.
He added that the culture and human rights defined in the United States and other western countries are different from Afghanistan and Westerners should not impose their culture on other countries.
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At least 1,500 families affected by recent floods: IRW
The Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW) organization has reported that the rains and floods of the last week have claimed the lives of many Afghan and incurred huge financial losses.
According to the organization, a total of 1,500 families have suffered as a result of the recent floods and hundreds of livestock have also been lost.
IRW added that following the recent rains, 900 houses were partially or completely destroyed and 93,000 hectares of agricultural land was damaged.
This comes amid an ongoing economic crisis in Afghanistan which has left millions of people reliant on aid.
The disaster management ministry meanwhile confirmed earlier that 99 people died and 64 others were injured as a result of the heavy rains.
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Russia says US facing humiliation in Ukraine like in Vietnam and Afghanistan
Russia said on Sunday U.S. lawmakers’ support for $60.84 billion more in aid for Ukraine showed that Washington was wading much deeper into a hybrid war against Moscow that would end in humiliation on a par with the Vietnam or Afghanistan conflicts.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said it was clear that the United States wanted Ukraine “to fight to the last Ukrainian” including with attacks on Russian sovereign territory and civilians, Reuters reported.
“Washington’s deeper and deeper immersion in the hybrid war against Russia will turn into a loud and humiliating fiasco for United States such as Vietnam and Afghanistan,” Zakharova said.
Russia, she said, will give “an unconditional and resolute response” to the U.S. move to get more involved in the Ukraine war.
The United States lost more than 58,000 military personnel in the 1955-75 Vietnam War, which ended with Communist North Vietnam’s victory and takeover of the South, while hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed.
In the 2001-2021 war in Afghanistan, the U.S. reported 2,459 dead and over 20,000 wounded in the conflict which ended with the withdrawal of U.S.-led coalition forces and return to power of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA).
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