Gunmen abduct and kill nine people after stopping passenger buses on Pakistan highway
The overnight attacks occurred in the Zhob and Loralai districts of Balochistan province as the buses traveled from the provincial capital, Quetta, to Punjab province, district administrator Saadat Husain said Friday.
The attackers fled the scene and a search is underway to track down the assailants. Authorities recovered the bodies along the highway, Husain said.
Ashfaq Chaudhry, an administrator in Punjab's Dera Ghazi Khan district, said the attackers appeared to target passengers from Punjab specifically.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the abduction and killings of the bus passengers.
Pakistan's president Asif Ali Zardari issued a statement condemning the 'brutal killing of passengers' in Balochistan. He blamed the outlawed Baloch Liberation Army for the deaths and said the group wanted to 'spread chaos and instability in Pakistan.'
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Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Daily Mail
ANDREW PIERCE: Was Afzal Khan's visit to Cyprus a bid to save his seat as he faces battle against Corbyn's new party?
Not for nothing has Labour 's Afzal Khan been dubbed the 'Honourable Member for Islamabad'. Born in Pakistan, where he lived until he was 11, the bearded MP has become perhaps the Commons' most vocal cheerleader for his ancestral homeland. On Thursday, he was in his element, helping raise Pakistan's national flag at the country's consulate, found – where else? – in his Manchester Rusholme constituency, at an event to mark the anniversary of partition from India in 1947. The first Muslim Lord Mayor of Manchester, who speaks Urdu as a first language, Khan also finds time to chair the all-party parliamentary group on 'Britain-Pakistan trade and tourism' and was, until he was dramatically sacked on Friday night, a trade envoy to Turkey. He is, meanwhile, a former parliamentary chair for the Labour Muslim Network, an ex-assistant secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain and vice-chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on British Muslims. Yet in the past week, this distinguished if perhaps narrowly focused politician became famous for all the wrong reasons – having triggered an ugly international spat by embarking on a bizarre all-expenses-paid trip to northern Cyprus. This Turkish-controlled territory is an international pariah, unrecognised by the British or any other government except Istanbul. In 1974, after an attempted coup by Greek Cypriots, Turkish troops invaded Cyprus, raping women, abusing children, displacing perhaps 160,000 people and slaughtering an estimated 4,000 Greek Cypriots. The United Nations, Great Britain and the international community have never accepted the rogue state of 'northern Cyprus', which amounts to about 36 per cent of the island. Predictably, then, Khan's squalid little jaunt has triggered outrage in Cyprus, which boasts two British military bases, and indeed beyond. The National Federation of Cypriots in the UK denounced the trip as a 'flagrant breach' of both international law and British policy. Khan even agreed to be photographed grinning alongside Turkish Cypriot 'leader' Ersin Tatar at the latter's 'official residence', while accepting an honorary doctorate. Further reports suggest they exchanged 'gifts'. Khan was in fact a guest of Tatar who had issued a 'formal invitation' – and who was no doubt delighted at the propaganda coup of having lured a senior British MP from the governing party to lend legitimacy to his Potemkin statelet. While there, Khan – who neither sought nor received permission from the Labour leadership for the visit, nor discussed it with the Foreign Office – also saw nothing wrong in attending a series of 'official meetings', according to reports. Khan did not respond to my requests for comment. So what was the 67-year-old thinking? 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Already massing under the banner of the so-far-unnamed outfit – nicknamed 'Jezbollah' – are four 'independent' Muslim MPs who captured their seats from Labour at the last election. Health Secretary Wes Streeting, seen as a future Labour leader, squeaked home in Ilford North by just 528 votes, narrowly beating a 24-year-old whose campaign was endorsed by the increasingly powerful Muslim Vote pressure group. Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood saw her majority in Birmingham slashed from 28,500 to 3,400. Corbyn and his chums, then, represent a serious threat to the Labour order. And on Friday night, a source close to Corbyn told me that Manchester Rusholme is top of their hit list. 'Afzal Khan is a long-time supporter of Starmer's regime,' said the source. 'We will flood Khan's constituency with supporters and resources. 'We intend to win it big. 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Telegraph
2 days ago
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I fled the Taliban in a wheelbarrow when Kabul fell
I'm not fleeing, I tell myself. I don't flee anything. But the truth is, if I stay, I might not be alive tomorrow – so here I stand at the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, with a rusty wheelbarrow as my getaway vehicle. I'm wearing a long shalwar kameez – a traditional Afghan robe – a hat, and a beard that's taken me weeks to grow, so the men at the border will mistake me for Taliban fighters just like them. Exhausted from reporting day and night on the war between the Taliban and Afghan forces, I force an outward appearance of calmness and confidence, trying to suppress the beating of my heart so I can pass through unnoticed. In my sock is a wad of cash and strapped around my chest is the very item that, if found, would seal my fate: a passport with the word 'reporter' written in black ink. It is now four years since I left Afghanistan and Kabul fell to the Taliban, knowing that staying could mean death for me and anyone else who worked as a journalist for the Western media. I still remember the screams of children piercing the air as we stood, thousands of us, including mothers and babies, pressed against each other; the heat becoming unbearable. Every so often, a cloud of dust would envelop me as Taliban fighters picked people off and beat them. As I was shoved along, a man with a wheelbarrow appeared. 'Do you want to cross?' he asked. A few minutes later, I was folded into his wheelbarrow like contraband, about to be rolled past Taliban checkpoints under the pretext of being a patient too sick to walk – one of the ways to get into Pakistan. This rusted vessel became my unlikely 'escape' route, smuggling me past Taliban fighters in the most audacious two-pound gamble of my life. My smuggler's plan was simple – play to their humanity, if any remained. The metal sides of the old green wheelbarrow blazed under the scorching sun, too searing to touch with my bare hands. As we pushed through the crowd, Taliban fighters loomed like spectres of death. Their eyes swept over us. One wrong move, one suspicious glance, and this wheelbarrow would become my coffin. But somehow, impossibly, we rolled past them. The dust continued to swirl, the sun continued to burn, and somewhere behind us lay a hell I had left in the most unlikely vehicle imaginable. I was now in Pakistan with no way to contact my editors in London after crossing, having gone more than 24 hours without food. I was worn down by sleepless weeks of war reporting and weighed down by worries about every part of my life – but not myself. Here, I think I encountered the most unfriendly people on Earth. Exhausted, I walked for hours asking to borrow a phone so I could make a call, even offering cash. In the end, one man from my home country let me use his hotel's phone. Finally, a lifeline to the West. The war had reached my doorstep a week before my dash across the border, in Herat, a city in western Afghanistan. I had initially refused to leave because I wanted to report on the scale of human suffering unfolding around me. The gunfire and deafening explosions ripped through the country, but on the morning of August 12, 2021, it sounded different – closer, final. We had watched American B-52 bombers slice through the sky above us the night before, their engines a promise of salvation. That morning, I had already reported the fall of nearly half the country. By now, I was telling London that the Taliban had encircled Kabul. When shots and explosions drew closer, I decided to turn off my phone and leave my flat, which sat next to the provincial prison and government offices. But it was too late. Outside, rockets fell relentlessly. People ran in every direction seeking shelter while cars sped along the wrong side of the road. In one corner, I saw a Taliban fighter firing as another held a chain of bullets for him. Death was everywhere. I went to a friend's house in a safer part of the city and watched convoys of Taliban fighters flooding in through the window. I reported the fall of Herat, Helmand, and Kandahar that night. Herat felt different the next day – all of Afghanistan still is from that day four years ago. When I returned to my flat a few days later, I found shards of glass scattered everywhere – windows had been hit by several bullets, right next to where I used to sit and report. My friends and I used to play cards at night there, go to a garden and swim in its pool and play cards, drive through the city in the evenings, go to a nearby park and play cards, and play cards again. We loved that. Now, the lucky ones among us are scattered across the world, while those who stayed home are living through the trauma of no jobs, no money, and no future. They no longer have the fun we used to have. One of them manages to flee every few months. 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In Afghanistan, free journalism no longer exists, and one of my closest friends – an exceptional journalist – is now in a notorious Taliban prison. I've never felt comfortable telling my story or becoming the story, but one of the reasons I agreed to write this was to mention Hamid, who has been tortured by the Taliban in Kabul for a whole year. Around 10 years ago, on a freezing, snowy day, we went to a remote refugee camp by a mountain to report with another friend who is now in hiding after the Taliban repeatedly came after him. On another occasion, we were distributing our student magazine at university. I offered a copy, the result of our week-long hard work, to a passing student. She didn't even look at it, and when she walked away, I was so frustrated I smashed the bundle on the ground – but quickly rushed to collect them before the wind could scatter them. Hamid was watching, laughing, and said he would remind me of that moment when I won an international award for my reporting. I stopped working for public recognition years ago, but knowing Hamid is in prison while I'm free to report drives me to keep doing what we all loved. We wanted to report – that's why we decided to become journalists in a year when Afghanistan was the deadliest country for reporters. We were 150 people that year. There are just two of us still reporting. We loved telling people's stories for a living, and we would excitedly tell each other what we were working on. I have been reporting for over 10 years, eight of them with British newspapers, without taking a single day off. When I report now, I feel I represent Hamid. I think of the six words written on my editor's desk at this newspaper and respect them, because I believe words have killed more people than bullets. 'Words are powerful. Choose them well.'
The Independent
2 days ago
- The Independent
Former Afghan interpreter exposed in huge MoD data breach has UK relocation revoked
A former Afghan interpreter exposed in a catastrophic Ministry of Defence (MoD) data breach has had his offer of relocation to the UK revoked – despite waiting for two years in Pakistan to be brought to Britain. The former patrol interpreter is believed to be one of several families who had been accepted for sanctuary in the UK by the MoD due to their service alongside British troops, but who have now had their applications rebuffed by the Home Office. He has been detained by Pakistan police who entered the UK-run hotel he was staying in on Wednesday and brought him to a deportation camp, his lawyer said. His details were leaked in a MoD breach that exposed the details of thousands of Afghans who said they were in danger from the Taliban because of their links to UK forces and wanted to escape to Britain. The man and his family have now been given 14 days to leave the hotel they have been staying in. They are without Pakistan visas, money, or anywhere else to go. Rafi Hottak, a former interpreter for the British Army who now campaigns for Afghans left behind, said the reversal decision was 'morally bankrupt'. Mr Hottak said: 'There is a real risk of deportation to these people. I think it is morally bankrupt for the UK government to do this. They have not been able to go out, their wives and children are suffering, and suddenly you throw a bomb shell on them. Whatever the reason is they need to be given a clear answer to why their case is rejected'. Erin Alcock, the lawyer for the former Afghan interpreter, filed an urgent application to the High Court in the UK on Thursday, asking for the family's support to be continued long enough to allow them to appeal the sudden decision. Ms Alcock, senior associate at law firm Leigh Day, said: 'It is a horrifying development, following a sudden and unexplained visa refusal that our client is seeking to have reviewed in the Special Immigration Appeals Commission. We are working urgently to challenge the decision to remove support from our client's family in the meantime'. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Defence said that Afghans eligible to come to the UK must pass security and entry checks before relocation. The revelation comes as another family also being housed in a Pakistan hotel awaiting relocation to the UK was detained by police and readied for deportation to Afghanistan, according to the son of a former Afghan special forces commando. The son, who has been waiting to be brought to the UK for nearly 10 months, told The Independent: 'The British government knows that as soon as we fall into the hands of the Taliban, we will all be killed.' He said that 13 members of this family, including his father, have been taken to the same deportation camp by the police. His father, who also had his details exposed in the MoD leak, served alongside UK special forces and has been found eligible for sanctuary in the UK, along with his family members. His desperate son, who said he managed to escape arrest, told The Independent: 'We are even willing for only our children and wives to be relocated. If we are sent back to Afghanistan and killed, so be it – but why should the children of our family and our wives have to face such punishment? At least in this way, we would know that our children and wives are safe and will survive'. He added: 'It is very disheartening – our children should be enjoying their childhood games at the age of four, not suffering from PTSD because of circumstances that have been unfortunately forced upon us'. A MoD spokesperson said that the UK government was only able to confirm if families had passed or failed their visa checks once they were in a third country. They said: 'We are honouring our commitments to all eligible people who pass their relevant checks for relocation. 'As the public would rightly expect, anyone coming to the UK must pass strict security and entry checks before being able to relocate to the UK. In some cases, people do not pass these checks. 'All letters of eligibility clearly say that relocation is conditional for passing these checks.'
