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TTP attack kills ANP leader in Swat, injures candidate in Charsadda
[Dawn] Awami National Party (ANP) local leader, Mukaram Shah, was killed in an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) attack in Swat's Manglawar area on Sunday whereas ANP candidate Syed Masoom Shah was injured in a kaboom near the venue of a party rally in Charsadda.In the first attack in Swat  ...a valley and an administrative district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistain, located 99 mi from Islamabad. It is inhabited mostly by Pashto speakers. The place has gone steadily downhill since the days when Babe Ruth was the Sultan of Swat...an apparently remotely-detonated bomb targeted the vehicle of ANP local leader and member of an anti-Taliban lashkar, Mukaram Shah, in Banjot village of Manglawar area in Swat. The vehicle was destroyed in the blast. In the second incident an election candidate of the ANP from PK 21, Syed Masoom Shah, was injured along with three other people in a blast that occurred near the venue of an ANP rally held in Katozai village in Charsadda's Shabqadar tehsil. The candidate was returning from the venue of an ANP rally when the blast occurred according to local police control room sources. Masoom Shah was also earlier injured in an attack on an ANP rally in Feb 2008. Proscribed jihad boy organization Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) jihad boy organization grabbed credit for both the remotely-detonated attacks. TTP spokesperson Ehsanullah Ehsan told Dawn.com that the organization had targeted the candidates due to the secular views of the party. The Pak Taliban had earlier warned of and conducted attacks against what it calls as 'secular parties' including the Muttahida Qaumi Movement ...English: United National Movement, generally known as MQM, is the 3rd largest political party and the largest secular political party in Pakistain with particular strength in Sindh. From 1992 to 1999, the MQM was the target of the Pak Army's Operation Cleanup leaving thousands of urdu speaking civilians dead... (MQM), Pakistain Peoples Party (PPP) and ANP. A candidate belonging to the MQM was killed in Hyderabad last week in an attack claimed by the banned TTP organization. Swat valley was ruled by the Pak Taliban during a 2007-9 insurgency was cleared out of militancy after the armed forces conducted an operation in the area. More over two bombs weighing 20 pounds each were defused by security forces in the Bannu district near Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. In another incident, a bomb planted on a cycle of violence was defused near a Frontier Corps (FC) checkpost situated in the Chaman area near the Pak-Afghan border. Posted by: Fred 2013-04-15 |
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