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Police arrest 18 over Nanga Parbat massacre
[Dawn] Police in Gilgit-Baltistan said Thursday they have tossed in the calaboose... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... 18 suspects over the killing of 10 foreign climbers in the Himalayas in June, but warned that others remain on the lam. The June 22 attack was the deadliest assault on foreigners in Pakistain for a decade and was claimed by a purported new faction of Pakistain's umbrella Taliban movement, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP). Police in the northern districts of Gilgit and Diamer in the Gilgit-Baltistan region said they have arrested 18 suspects on suspicion of planning and carrying out the attack. The officer leading the investigation said only four of those held are believed to have been directly involved in the killings at the foot of Pakistain's second highest mountain Nanga Parbat. "We have arrested four culprits who shot the tourists at Nanga Parbat base camp while seven are still on the lam," Muhammad Naveed told AFP. The victims of the attack, carried out by men in police uniforms, were identified as one American with dual Chinese citizenship, three Ukrainians, two other Chinese, two Slovakians, one Lithuanian and one Nepalese. A Pak guide was also killed. New details emerge Further details of the attack have emerged during interrogation. The suspects have revealed that their original plan was to kidnap the trekkers, an investigating officer said. "They said their plan went foul when one of the Chinese resisted after they approached them," he said. "After the Chinese tourist retaliated, one of the gunnies fired a shot that killed him and the gunnies fought with each other over it. After that they sprayed bullets at all the tourists." Asked if the kidnap could have worked, the officer said it would have been almost impossible for them to escape with the hostages because of the difficult terrain. A bigwig of the local administration said gunnies from Diamer district had linked up with the Pak Taliban and travelled to the tribal areas along the Afghan border for training. A group of 35 including the 18 detainees was trained in North  Wazoo."This group was launched as an extension of the Pak Taliban in the northern region," the official told AFP, adding that the group had been behind a rise in killings targeting Shia Mohammedans in the north. Naveed, the senior police officer, also confirmed that some of the suspects arrested in connection with the Nanga Parbat attack had links with the Pak Taliban. After the attack the Taliban said it had set up a new faction, Junood ul-Hifsa, to kill foreigners to avenge US drone strikes on Taliban and Al-Qaeda operatives in northwest Pakistain. Until the June 22 attack, Gilgit-Baltistan was considered immune from much of the militancy plaguing other areas. The killings badly hit the local tourism industry, a major economic prop. Posted by: Fred 2013-11-01 |
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