PESHAWAR: A counterterrorism official and a senior cleric affiliated with a religious party were shot dead on Tuesday in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province in two separate incidents of “targeted killings,” police said.
Unidentified gunmen shot dead Sub-inspector Samiullah Dawar, who was working with the provincial counterterrorism department (CTD), in Mir Ali area of the North Waziristan tribal district, according to District Police Officer (DPO) Rohanzeb Khan.
“The slain officer was targeted at around 6pm close to his home in Hassukhel area,” Khan told Arab News.
The police collected evidence from the scene and a case was lodged against unidentified suspects, according to the DPO.
Dawar’s killing came hours after Noor Islam Nizami, a senior cleric affiliated with the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) religious party, was gunned down in the Miran Shah area of the same district.
The undated photo shows Noor Islam Nizami, a senior cleric affiliated with the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) religious party, who was gunned down in the Miran Shah area in northwest Pakistan on April 2, 2024. (@mjdawar/X)
The suspects, who were riding motorbikes, managed to get away from the scene, according to Khan. The body of the deceased was shifted to the District Headquarters Hospital for post-mortem.
Police were investigating both incidents from different angles, he added.
While no group immediately claimed responsibility for the killings, suspicion is likely to fall on the Pakistani Taliban, or the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), who have had a significant presence in North Waziristan and adjacent districts before being driven out as a result of successive military operations over the years.
The targeted killings also come at a time of renewed militant violence in Pakistan’s northwestern and southwestern regions that border Afghanistan. The violence initially picked up after the TTP called off its fragile, monthslong truce with the government in November 2022.
Last month, seven Pakistani soldiers, including two army officers, were killed in a militant attack in the same district, the Pakistani military said.
The attack led the Pakistani military to carry out rare airstrikes against suspected TTP hideouts inside Afghanistan on March 18, killing eight people. The strikes prompted Afghan forces to fire heavy weapons at Pakistani soldiers along the border.
Both Pakistan and Afghanistan have traded blame in recent months over who is responsible for a recent spate of militant attacks in Pakistan. Islamabad says the attacks are launched mostly by TTP members who operate from safe havens in Afghanistan. Kabul denies this and blames Islamabad for not being able to handle its own security challenges.
