LAHORE: Security agencies investigating the series of roadside bomb explosions in Karachi targeting three buses of the Pakistan Navy in a span of three days believe that the terrorist attacks were coordinated operations, masterminded jointly by the Baloch nationalists and Taliban extremists.
Preliminary investigations by security agencies indicate the involvement of the Balochistan Liberation Front (BLF), led by Brahamdagh Khan Bugti, and the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), led by Commander Hakimullah Mahsud, which is being taken as a dangerous development. The BLF is a splinter group of the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), being led by Harabyar Marri, the self-exiled son of Nawab Khair Bukhsh Marri, a seasoned Baloch nationalist leader. The BLF was launched following the assassination of the legendary Baloch nationalist leader Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, by his grandson, Brahamdagh Khan. Both the BLA and the BLF had been banned by the Pakistan government on September 9, 2009 for their involvement in anti-state activities, terrorist activities, kidnappings for ransom, bombings as well as ethnic based killings.
Those investigating the series of attacks on the Pakistan Navy buses reminded that the TTP usually carries out terrorist operations with the help of its suicide bombers or Fidayeen attackers with a view to cause maximum casualties. However, the usage of IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and remote-controlled bombs in the Karachi attacks seems quite unusual, although it has already been executed quite successfully in Iraq and Afghanistan. They pointed out that it was way back on June 10, 2004 that the cavalcade of Lt Gen Ahsan Saleem Hayat, the former Corps Commander of Karachi, was targeted with an improvised explosive device near the Clifton Bridge by detonating a remote-controlled device, killing 11 people including seven Army personnel. Security agencies had subsequently apprehended a group of Jundallah terrorists, headed by an Arab, Musab Aruchi, who eventually turned out to be a nephew of now detained al-Qaeda leader Khalid Sheikh.
However, those investigating the Karachi bomb attacks on the navy buses blame it on BLF-TTP nexus, saying that the two terrorist groups are collaborating in carrying out terrorist operations in Karachi. According to them, some of the BLA and TTP militants already arrested by security agencies have confessed during interrogations that the Pakistani Taliban and some of the Baloch nationalists groups, including Balochistan Liberation Army, Balochistan Liberation Front and Lashkar-e-Balochistan, were carrying out coordinated terrorist operations in Karachi, mostly targeting security agencies. One such terrorist, Abdul Qadir Kalmati, also known as Raketi, son of Abdul Rehman, who was arrested from Karachi while planting explosives at the Garden Police Headquarters, has confessed that he was an activist of the Lashkar-e-Balochistan and was working in tandem with the TTP. Kalmati has already confessed to his group’s involvement in over half-a-dozen terrorist activities in Karachi.
Investigators say the Baloch insurgents and the Taliban extremists had carried out several other terrorist activities in the past, the most recent being the November 11, 2010 attack on the Crime Investigation Department (CID) building in Karachi. Led by BLA activist Afzal Baloch, a group of eight terrorists opened fire at the main entrance of the CID building to pave the way for a TTP suicide bomber (riding a vehicle) to enter the building and explode himself. The truck bomb killed 20, including many policemen. The investigating agencies had traced out the BLA-TTP nexus behind the CID building attack, especially after identifying Afzal Baloch who was captured by the security cameras. The investigators say the Baloch insurgents and Taliban extremists often exchange weapons, money and trained men to carry out terrorist activities besides committing heinous crimes like murders, kidnappings for ransom, and gang robberies in Karachi.
In fact, strangely enough, both the BLF and the TTP had claimed responsibility for the April 26, 2011 twin attacks targeting two buses of the Pakistan Navy with remote-controlled bombs, roughly 15 minutes apart in different areas of the port city of Karachi. The Taliban were the first ones to claim responsibility for the attacks. “Our men carried out this attack and all security forces are our target. The Pakistan security forces will be targeted in the future as well, because they are killing their own people in Waziristan and elsewhere at the behest of the United States. They will be attacked everywhere in the country. Our organisation is still strong in cities of Pakistan,” TTP spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan told a foreign news agency’s (Reuters) correspondent via telephone while calling from an undisclosed location. While claiming responsibility (in a telephone call to a correspondent of the Associated Press from an undisclosed location) for the April 29, 2011 bomb attack, targeting yet another bus of the Pakistan Navy, TTP spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan said the Taliban would keep up the deadly strikes as long as the Pakistan Army continued to attack the group in the northwest.
The second responsibility claim for the April 27, 2011 twin bomb attacks, targeting two buses of the Pakistan Navy, was made by Bassam Baloch, the spokesman of the BLF, while making phone calls from an undisclosed location to some local journalists in Quetta. He said that the attacks on the navy buses were carried out in reaction to missing persons of Balochistan and mutilated dead bodies of political workers being recovered everyday from the Balochistan province. Bassam further said that his organisation was expanding its network in all parts of the country, adding that such attacks would continue in future also until the situation improves in the province. He said the Baloch people were struggling according to international laws, but the Pakistani security forces are continuously violating the international war laws. “Therefore, the BLF has decided to attack the Pakistani security forces anywhere in the country, and the attacks on navy buses in Karachi were just the beginning.”
Ethnic Baloch militants have waged a low-level insurgency for decades for more autonomy and greater control of natural resources of their region. They frequently attack both the government installations and security forces in their violent campaign in various parts of Balochistan. But this is the first time that the Pakistan Navy has been attacked, and that too in Karachi, which is the main base for the navy. Those investigating the bus attacks say these could be retaliatory acts on the part of the militants as the bombings came days after Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani’s statement that his forces had broken the back of the militants. According to them, the prime target of both the Baloch insurgents as well as Taliban extremists was the Pakistani armed forces and not just the Pakistan Navy, which seem to have been attacked thrice in a short span of three days because of being a soft target.
However, the fact remains that while the Pakistan Army and Pakistan Air Force have no operational role to play in the US-led military operations in Afghanistan against al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban, the Pakistan Navy is a member of the US-led international naval force, which patrols the seas to the west of Pakistan to prevent any hostile activity which could hamper the operations in the Afghan territory. The Combined Task Force 150, established at the beginning of Operation Enduring Freedom in 2001, comprises naval forces from the United Kingdom and the United States, France, Germany, Italy and Pakistan. The Combined Task Force conducts maritime security operations in the Gulf of Aden, the Gulf of Oman, the Arabian Sea, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. The leadership of the task force is rotated amongst the participating navies. A Pakistani naval officer commands it off and on when the turn of the Pakistan Navy comes.
