PESHAWAR: Unidentified assailants on Tuesday shot dead a senior journalist, Khalil Jibran, in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, a police official said, in the latest incident of violence in the restive region during the three-day Eid Al-Adha holiday.
The northwestern Pakistani province, which borders Afghanistan, has been the scene of a number of attacks on police, security forces and anti-polio vaccination teams in recent weeks.
Jibran, a former president of the Landi Kotal Press club in KP’s Khyber tribal district, was en route to his home in the district headquarters of Landi Kotal, when he came under attack by the suspects.
“He [Jibran] was coming back from his friend’s hujra [guest room] after dinner when he was killed by unknown assailants,” Saleem Abbas Kulachi, Khyber district police chief, told Arab News
“Police found bullet shells of M4 and AK-47 [rifles] at the scene,” he added.
The development came days after the Pakistani Taliban or the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) announced a three-day ceasefire with the government in Islamabad from June 17 till June 19 on the occasion of Eid Al-Adha.
KP Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur condemned Jibran’s killing and extended his heartfelt sympathies to the deceased’s family, according to his office.
“Police have been asked to take necessary action for immediate arrest of the suspects,” it said.
Journalist bodies have announced a protest against Jibran’s killing across all tribal districts of the province on Thursday.
Separately, three bodies were found in Mir Ali area of North Waziristan tribal district, while a religious party leader, who was injured in a shooting in the South Waziristan district last week, succumbed to his wounds on Tuesday, according to officials. No group claimed responsibility for the killings.
Pakistan has witnessed a spike in militant violence in its two western provinces, KP and Balochistan, since the TTP called off its fragile truce with the government in November 2022.
Islamabad has blamed the surge in violence on militants operating out of neighboring Afghanistan. Kabul denies the allegation and says rising violence in Pakistan is a domestic issue of Islamabad.
Senior journalist shot dead in northwest Pakistan over Eid holiday
https://arab.news/b7dy9
Senior journalist shot dead in northwest Pakistan over Eid holiday
- Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province has been the scene of a number of attacks on police, security forces in recent weeks
- Islamabad has blamed the surge in violence on militants operating out of neighboring Afghanistan, Kabul denies the allegation
Rating firm S&P says it won’t rush Iran war downgrades, sees risks for countries like Pakistan
- Agency says it is monitoring indebted energy importers as higher oil prices strain finances
- Gulf economies seen better placed to weather shock, though Bahrain flagged as vulnerable
LONDON: S&P Global said it would not make any knee-jerk sovereign rating cuts following the outbreak of war in the Middle East, but warned on Thursday that soaring oil and gas prices were putting a number of already cash-strapped countries at risk.
The firm’s top analysts said in a webinar that the conflict, which has involved US and Israeli strikes against Iran and Iranian strikes against Israel, US bases and Gulf states, was now moving from a low- to moderate-risk scenario.
Most Gulf countries had enough fiscal buffers, however, to weather the crisis for a while, with more lowly rated Bahrain the only clear exception.
Qatar’s banking sector could also struggle if there were significant deposit outflows in reaction to the conflict, although there was no evidence of such strains at the moment, they said.
“We don’t want to jump the gun and just say things are bad,” S&P’s head global sovereign analyst, Roberto Sifon-Arevalo, said.
The longer the crisis was prolonged, though, “the more difficult it is going to be,” he added.
Sifon-Arevalo said Asia was the second-most exposed region, due to many of its countries being significant Gulf oil and gas importers.
India, Thailand and Indonesia have relatively lower reserves of oil, while the region also had already heavily indebted countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka whose finances would be further hurt by rising energy prices.
“We are closely monitoring these (countries) to see how the credit stories evolve,” Sifon-Arevalo said.
