LANDI KOTAL
Afghan and Zakakhel tribesmen from Khyber Agency’s Bara area on Sunday started shifting to safer places in the wake of a fresh attack on a peace committee in which one peace militiaman was killed and three were injured.
Official sources said that the vehicle of Tawheedul Islam peace committee activists was targeted in Zakakhel. The vehicle was completely destroyed in the attack. The peace committee members suspected that the banned terrorist group Lashkar-e-Islam (LI) was behind the attack.
The LI and Zakakhel tribesmen have been fighting for the last one year and renewed threats would further deteriorate the situation in the area.
Tribal and official sources confirmed that the Mangal Bagh-led LI had warned Afghan refugees and the Zakakhel Shinwari tribes, a sub-tribe of the Afridis, and known for their tribal fierceness, living in the area to announce allegiance to the LI or leave Bara where the banned group is still known to have stronghold.
Most of these people were settled in Akakhel, Sipah, Malikdin Khel and Shalobar areas in Khyber Agency who were given the deadline of April 27, 4pm to take either of the options as their decision.
The tribal people in Bara said that the LI terrorists had visited them and asked them to support them while warning that they would have to leave the area in case they decided otherwise.
Afghan refugee Rehman Gul who was leaving from Bara via Bara Qadeem check post to a safer place said that the banned outfit has threatened the refugees to vacate the area. He said that they had been living in Bara for the past 27 years and now were forced to leave.
Qayyum Khan, the in-charge of the police check post at Bara Qadeem, on the border of restive Bara region said that so far between 10 to 15 families had crossed the border with their luggage and they were still many moving out from the area.
Seeking anonymity, a political administration official said that the terrorist group wanted to recruit people forcibly from the areas and that was why they were forcing the Afghans and the other tribes to give them fighters or money to supplement their strength.
Separately, a man was killed and two others wounded when unidentified gunmen opened fire on a house in Peshawar’s Daudzai area.
Police and rescue teams reached the scene and shifted the injured to a nearby hospital.
About a dozen assailants attacked the house in Gharibabad area of Daudzai, police sources said.
However, it has not been confirmed so far if terrorists were behind the attack or it was a personal feud.
In another incident, two suspects were arrested and a huge cache of arms and ammunition was seized from a truck on Razmak Road in Dera Ismail Khan.
Police claimed to have seized five Kalashnikov rifles, pistols and 25,000 rounds of bullets.
