KARACHI: Two Pakistani soldiers were shot dead Tuesday when motorcycle gunmen opened fire on their pick-up truck in the southern city of Karachi, officials said.
Dr. Kaleem Shaikh, at Jinnah Post Graduate Medical College, told AFP that the dead men had been identified as Khadim Hussain and Abdul Razzaq.
Both were shot in the head and face, he said.
“Razzaq died after reaching hospital while Hussain also died of his wounds after some time,” Shaikh added.
Police said the soldiers, who belonged to an intelligence agency, were patrolling a crowded area of the southern city when their vehicle was attacked.
“The attackers were on a motorcycle and managed to escape through the congested narrow lanes,” senior police officer Raja Umar Khattab told Reuters.
Pakistan launched a major crackdown on militants and criminals in the city, which is the country’s economic hub, in 2013 and levels of violence have dropped drastically since then.
The killing of army personnel outside Pakistan’s northwestern restive tribal areas on the Afghanistan border and southwestern Baluchistan remains rare.
Last December two army men were gunned down in a parked military vehicle in Saddar area, a few kilometers away from Tuesday’s incident.
Karachi police chief Mustaq Mehar said investigators would examine if there was any link between the two killings.
The city of 20 million is frequently hit by religious, political and ethnic violence.
Gunmen kill two soldiers in Karachi
Gunmen kill two soldiers in Karachi
Erika Kirk, widow of influential activist, endorses Vance for US President
- “We are going to get my husband’s friend JD Vance elected for 48 in the most resounding way possible,” she said
- The endorsement comes as the Make America Great Again movement begins to look to a future without Trump
PHOENIX, USA: The widow of murdered right-wing activist Charlie Kirk has endorsed JD Vance for president in 2028, firing an early starting gun on the White House race, and offering the backing of the influential youth organization founded by her husband.
Erika Kirk, whose husband’s Turning Point USA was a major player in mobilizing young people to vote for Donald Trump in 2024, told thousands of attendees she was backing the vice president to become the 48th president.
“We are going to get my husband’s friend JD Vance elected for 48 in the most resounding way possible,” she said on Thursday night at AmericaFest, the first major Turning Point gathering since Charlie Kirk was killed.
Vance is due to speak at the gathering on Sunday.
The endorsement comes as the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement begins to look to a future without Trump.
Vance has not yet committed to running in 2028, but he is widely expected to put himself forward.
An early endorsement from a group that has become increasingly powerful within the movement could help to create momentum that makes a Vance candidacy seem inevitable.
But it also comes at a time that fractures in the MAGA movement are becoming increasingly obvious, and as some key figures are starting to express frustration and disillusionment with Trump.
Last month, firebrand Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene launched a blistering attack on Trump’s second-term agenda, which she said was betraying voters.
Greene, until recently one of Trump’s most loyal lieutenants, has said she will leave congress in January, with some commentators speculating that she might make a tilt at 2028.
Other figures on the right, including white nationalist Nick Fuentes, also appear to be trying to lay claim to the crown.
Vance was close to Charlie Kirk in the months and years before he was shot dead on a Utah college campus, in a political assassination that shocked America and sent conservatives into shocked mourning.
The vice president flew to Utah to console Erika Kirk and to accompany Charlie Kirk’s body back to the couple’s Arizona home.
Footage showed Vance walking with the coffin as it was loaded onto Air Force Two.
Charlie Kirk, 31, was a talented speaker who toured college campuses where he challenged young people to debates on hot-button issues.
Edited clips of these confrontations helped build a large social media following, which he parlayed into a movement that worked to mobilize young voters on right-wing issues.
A month after his death, Trump posthumously awarded him the Presidential medal of Freedom, hailing the young activist as a “martyr for truth and freedom.”
