Sindh Rangers claimed to have killed the chief of militant group Jundullah’s Pakistan chapter in a pre-dawn raid on a farmhouse in a village close to the Sindh-Balochistan border in Hub district.
Acting on a tip-off from intelligence agencies, the Frontier Corps, Sindh Rangers and police arrived at Goth Dilpul in the Sakran area, close to the Karachi northern bypass, and raided a house in a village on Sakran Road.
Saqib alias Arif alias Anjum Abbas was shot dead during an exchange of gunfire between terrorists and security personnel. His wife and nine-year-old son were also injured in the firefight.
Saquib was also deputy chief of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan’s Sindh chapter, a handout cited the Rangers spokesperson as saying. “He maintained ties with Da’esh, al Qaeda and Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA), and had been engaged in terror activities in the country.”
A suspected suicide bomber was arrested during the raid. A huge cache of explosives materials, hand grenades, rockets, mortar shells, pistols, rifles and other weapons were also recovered.
Rangers’ spokesperson also revealed that the deceased Jundullah chief along with members of Al Qaeda, Jamaatul Ahrar and Islamic State were involved in several high-profile terror acts.
Some of them were allegedly involved in various terror activities including attack on the vehicle of the then Corps Commander Karachi General Ahsan Saleem, suicide attack on Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) and Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazal ur Rehman in Quetta, assassination of chief security officer of Asif Ali Zardari, Bilal Shaikh, and attack on Church and members of minority communities.
The Rangers statement also claimed that the killed militant was planning major terror attacks on Rangers’ headquarter and the SSU headquarter in Karachi.
Official sources said a large cache of arms and ammunition was seized from the house that Arif had been using as a hideout. “Dozens of hand grenades, AK-47 rifles, rockets and over 1,000kg explosives were seized from the house… They had been packed into four big plastic drums and buried underground,” sources told media. The house was being used as a “factory” for improvised explosive devices.
-Two terrorists shot dead-
The Frontier Corps along with law-enforcement agencies killed two terrorists in an operation launched against kidnappers in the Awaran district. One FC soldier was also injured in the operation, according to reports.
Ten members of an outlawed organisation were arrested in Hoshab and Dera Bugti, in addition to recovering a cache of arms and explosives.
An FC spokesman said a search operation was launched in Tank Bazaar area of Hoshab and eight terrorists of the banned Baloch Liberation Front (BLF) were arrested on Friday.
In a separate operation, paramilitary soldiers arrested two terrorists of the banned Baloch Republican Army (BRA) in the Kordan area of Dera Bugti.
