60 killed, 165 injured in twin suicide attacks as militants storm police training college in Quetta

At least 60 security personnel were killed, and 165 others were injured as heavily-armed militants wearing suicide vests stormed a police academy in Quetta Monday night.

Three terrorists entered the New Sariab Police Training College, some 13 kilometres away from Quetta city. They headed straight for the hostel where police recruits were sleeping.

Communication intercepts showed the attack was carried out by Al-Alimi faction of the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi (LJ) militant group, IG Frontier Corps (FC) Major General Sher Afgan said.

Most of the deaths were caused when two of the attackers blew themselves up. The third was shot dead by Frontier Corps (FC) troops. At least 120 people were injured, DawnNews reported.

“I saw three men carrying Kalashnikovs… they were in camouflage and their faces were hidden,” one cadet told reporters. “They started firing and entered the dormitory but I managed to escape by climbing over a wall.”

Balochistan Home Minister Sarfaraz Bugti confirmed to reporters that there had been three attackers.

“They first targeted the watch tower sentry, and after exchanging fire killed him and were able to enter the academy grounds,” he said. “At least 20 were killed but this figure isn’t final – we’ll confirm it in the morning,” he said, putting the provisional number of injured at 65.

He added, “Frontier Corps’ Quick Response Force (QRF) wing responded along with Anti-Terrorist Force (ATF) and [Pakistan Army’s] Light Commando Battallion…one terrorist was killed while two of them exploded”.

The attack on the Balochistan Police College, around 20 kilometres east of Quetta, began at around 11:10pm Monday, with gunfire continuing to ring out at the site for several hours.

Major General Sher Afgan, chief of the paramilitary FC in Balochistan, which led the counter-operation, said: “the attack was over in around three hours after we arrived”.

The IG FC said, “terrorists were communicating with their handlers in Afghanistan”. “There were three terrorists and all of them were wearing suicide vests,” he added.

“Two suicide attackers blew themselves up, which resulted in casualties, while the third one was shot dead by our troops.”

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has cancelled all scheduled commitments and will arrive in Quetta in a couple of hours.

IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde, who is presently in Pakistan, took to Twitter to express condemnation of the attack

-Terrorists belonged to Lashkar-e-Jhangvi-

Bugti said the compound was housing some 700 recruits at the time of the attack, hundreds of whom were rescued. “I saw three men in camouflage whose faces were hidden carrying Kalashnikovs,” one cadet told reporters. “They started firing and entered the dormitory but I managed to escape over a wall.”

The area was plunged into darkness when the counter-offensive was launched, while security personnel created a cordon and ambulances zoomed in and out, taking the injured to hospitals. Military helicopters circled overhead.

“We have also received the body of one of the terrorists,” doctor Nasir Sumalani said.

The training college is situated on Sariab Road, one of the most sensitive areas of Quetta. While militants have been targeting security forces in the area for almost a decade, the training college has come under attack in 2006 and 2008.

The casualties were driven to different hospitals of the city where a state of emergency was declared. Provincial authorities, in the meantime, also made arrangements to fly those with critical wounds to hospitals in Karachi.

Chief Minister Nawab Sanaullah Zehri said that the terrorists attacked the police centre, which is located on the edge of Quetta after they failed to hit a target in the provincial capital where security was on high alert following intelligence information about a possible attack three or four days back.

The attack came a day after separatist gunmen on a motorcycle shot dead two coast guards and a civilian and wounded a shopkeeper in Gwadar.

-Security beefed up at hospital-

The injured cadets were brought to Civil Hospital. Those in critical condition were shifted to CMH Quetta.

Extraordinary security arrangements were made in and outside the Civil Hospital to prevent any untoward incident, especially in the wake of August 8 attack when a suicide attacker targeted the hospital.

An emergency was declared in all government hospitals of the provincial capital, with the injured shifted to Civil Hospital Quetta and the Bolan Medical Complex.

In August, a suicide bombing at a Quetta hospital claimed by the Islamic State group and the Jamaatul Ahrar faction of the Pakistani Taliban killed 73 people, including many of the city’s lawyer community who had gone there to mourn the fatal shooting of a colleague.

The army has repeatedly been accused by international rights groups of abuses in Balochistan, particularly against nationalists demanding autonomy and a greater share of the region’s resources. Balochistan is also a key region for China’s ambitious $46 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) infrastructure project linking its western province of Xinjiang to the Arabian Sea via Pakistan.

Pakistan has been battling an insurgency since shortly after it decided to ally with the US following its invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Violence has declined in recent years following a series of military offensives in the north-west border areas as well as concerted efforts to block the militants’ sources of funding. But the remnants of militant groups are still able to carry out periodic bloody attacks, particularly in the north-west.

Pakistan blames India for fuelling terrorism in Balochistan in an attempt to sabotage CPEC. A senior officer of the Indian navy, Kulbushan Yadav, was arrested from Balochistan earlier this year.

-PM Nawaz condemns attack-

Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif late Monday night strongly condemned the attack on Police Training Centre in Quetta and directed the federal and provincial authorities to bring the perpetrators to task as soon as possible.

The PM has especially shown concern over the safety and security of under training cadets at the Centre and directed that utmost efforts must be made to save precious lives while hunting down the terrorists.

The PM asked the provincial government and Ministry of Interior to brief him on the evolving situation on the continuous basis, said a press release.

While praying for the swift recovery of those injured during the attack, Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif directed for extending best medical treatment to them.