ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Wednesday announced the shutdown of border crossings with its western neighbors, Iran and Afghanistan, for one day, tomorrow, to ensure peaceful general elections amid mounting security concerns following two consecutive bomb blasts in the southwest that killed 27 people earlier today.
Pakistani security forces have launched several intelligence-based operations against militant hideouts in the Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces to prevent attacks on uniformed personnel and campaigning politicians.
Most of these incidents occurred near Iran and Afghanistan, though security was also enhanced in other areas of Pakistan ahead of the national polls.
Earlier this month, Pakistan’s election commission discussed the issue in an assessment meeting before confirming that the general elections would proceed as scheduled on Feb. 8.
“To ensure full security during the general elections to be held in Pakistan on 8 Feb 2024, border crossings with Afghanistan and Iran, would remain closed both for cargo and pedestrians,” the country’s foreign office spokesperson, Mumtaz Zahra Baloch, announced in a statement.
“Normal operations would resume on 9 Feb 2024,” she added.
Pakistani officials have previously attributed several militant attacks to the banned armed network, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), whose leadership is believed to be based in Afghanistan.
In recent actions, the country’s military also launched missile strikes against the hideouts of Baloch separatist groups in Iran, accused of inciting violence in Balochistan.
Pakistan to close border with Iran, Afghanistan to ensure peaceful elections amid militant attacks
https://arab.news/bz2y9
Pakistan to close border with Iran, Afghanistan to ensure peaceful elections amid militant attacks
- The country’s foreign office says the border closure on Feb. 8 will affect both cargo and pedestrians
- Pakistan plans to resume normal border operations a day after securing peaceful general elections
Four people, including two policemen, killed in twin blasts in northwest Pakistan
- Attack on police van in South Waziristan and motorbike-mounted IED in Lakki Marwat hits KP province
- Violence comes amid a surge in militancy and cross-border clashes between Pakistan and Afghanistan
ISLAMABAD: At least four people, including two policemen, were killed and about 20 others wounded in two separate blasts in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Saturday, officials said, the latest violence in a region grappling with militant violence.
One explosion targeted a police patrol van in Wana, the main town of South Waziristan district near the Afghan border, while another blast caused by explosives mounted on a motorbike struck a market area in Lakki Marwat district, according to police officials and preliminary reports.
The incidents come amid rising militant violence in Pakistan’s northwest, where authorities say armed groups operate from across the border in Afghanistan, straining relations between Islamabad and the Taliban administration in Kabul, with both sides engaged in a military conflict since last month.
“The control room received information in the evening about a bomb blast targeting a police van in Wana Bazaar,” a police official in the area, who did not want to be named, confirmed while speaking to Arab News over the phone.
He confirmed two deaths in the incident while saying more than 25 people had been injured.
The official said rescue teams responded promptly and shifted three seriously injured people to a nearby hospital in Wana.
In another incident during the day in Lakki Marwat, an improvised explosive device attached to a motorbike exploded near shops.
“Two people have been killed and about 10 have been injured in an IED blast in Lakki Marwat,” Raza Khan, Deputy Superintendent of Police in Bannu, told Arab News.
“The deceased are identified as Shoaib Ur Rehman and Furqan Ullah,” he added. “Shoaib, the owner of the shop, was the brother of the Lakki peace committee head.”
Peace committees in the region are informal, community-based groups that work with security forces to report militant activity and maintain order, making their members frequent targets of attacks.
Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi condemned the attacks and expressed grief over the incidents.
“I strongly condemn the blast near a police patrolling vehicle in Wana Bazaar,” Naqvi said in a statement, confirming the killing of four people, including two police personnel.
“Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police are on the front line in the war against terrorism,” he said, noting the force had made “unforgettable sacrifices” in the fight against militant groups.
Militant violence has surged in Pakistan’s border regions in recent months, particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces.
Islamabad has repeatedly accused the Afghan Taliban government of allowing militant groups, including the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), to operate from Afghan territory — a charge Kabul denies — as cross-border tensions between the two neighbors have escalated.
