Dasu bus attack

Last updated
Dasu bus incident
Part of the Insurgency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Anti-China terrorism in Pakistan
Date14 July 2021
Time(UTC+05:00)
Location Upper Kohistan District, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan
Type Suicide bombing
Perpetrator Pakistani Taliban
Deaths14 (including the perpetrator)
Non-fatal injuries28

On 14 July 2021, a bus carrying Chinese workers in the Dasu area of Upper Kohistan District, Pakistan, fell into a ravine after an explosion, killing 13 people, including nine Chinese citizens and four Pakistanis, and injuring 28 others. [1] [2] [3]

Contents

The bombing

The bomb was detonated near a hydroelectric project where Chinese and Pakistani workers had been laboring together for several years. The bus fell into a ravine as a result of the attack. The injured were taken by ambulance helicopters to a hospital in Dasu city, 10 km away. [4] Muhammad Hasnain and Muhammed Ayaz, who were identified as Pakistani Taliban members and masterminds of the attack, were arrested and sentenced to death in November 2022. [5]

Reactions

On 12 August 2021, Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said that Afghanistan's soil was used for the terrorist attack and the investigators were looking traces of its planning and that the perpetrators had met meeting with NDS and RAW revealing an "Indian-Afghan nexus." [6] [7]

The same day, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) DG Javed Iqbal, said that Dasu attack was a suicide attack and it was done by attackers from Afghanistan. He identified Khalid aka Sheikh as the bomber and said he was a resident of Afghanistan. DG Javed Iqbal had identified Muhammad Tariq Rafiq, a commander of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, as the main mastermind behind the attack. [8]

Response

The main mastermind of the attack, Muhammad Tariq Rafiq, was killed in Paich Dara, Kunar Province, Afghanistan on 12 July 2023. Muhammad Tariq Rafiq was highly wanted commander of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and was responsible for number of terrorist attacks in Pakistan including the Dasu bus attack. [9] [10] [11]

On 12 November 2022, an anti-terrorism court in Pakistan sentenced both Muhammad Hussain and Muhammad Ayaz to death for their involvement in the attack. [12]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Terrorism in Pakistan</span>

Terrorism in Pakistan, according to the Ministry of Interior, poses a significant threat to the people of Pakistan. The wave of terrorism in Pakistan is believed to have started in 2000. Attacks and fatalities in Pakistan were on a "declining trend" between 2015 and 2019, but has gone back up from 2020-2022, with 971 fatalities in 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abdul Kabir</span> Afghan Taliban leader

Mohammed Abdul Kabir is a senior member of the Taliban leadership who is a militant leader and, since 4 October 2021, the acting third deputy prime minister for political affairs of Afghanistan in the internationally unrecognized Taliban regime. He previously was the acting prime minister of Afghanistan from 16 April 2001 to 13 November 2001.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Insurgency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa</span> Armed conflict involving Pakistan and armed militant groups

The insurgency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, also known as the War in North-West Pakistan or Pakistan's war on terror, is an ongoing armed conflict involving Pakistan and Islamist militant groups such as the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Jundallah, Lashkar-e-Islam (LeI), TNSM, al-Qaeda, and their Central Asian allies such as the ISIL–Khorasan (ISIL), Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, East Turkistan Movement, Emirate of Caucasus, and elements of organized crime. Formerly a war, it is now a low-level insurgency as of 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lashkar-e-Islam</span> Islamist terrorist organization in Pakistan

Lashkar-e-Islam, also written as Laskhar-i-Islam, is a Deobandi jihadist terrorist group operating in Khyber District, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, Pakistan and the neighboring Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pakistani Taliban</span> Islamist militant organization operating along the Durand Line

The Pakistani Taliban, formally called the Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan, is an umbrella organization of various Islamist armed militant groups operating along the Afghan–Pakistani border. Formed in 2007 by Baitullah Mehsud, its current leader is Noor Wali Mehsud, who has publicly pledged allegiance to the Afghan Taliban. The Pakistani Taliban share a common ideology with the Afghan Taliban and have assisted them in the 2001–2021 war, but the two groups have separate operation and command structures.

Azam Tariq or Rais Khan was a spokesperson for the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the fourth-highest ranking commander in the group. The TTP chose him as its spokesman after his predecessor, Maulvi Umar, who was detained by Pakistani authorities in August 2009.

Ehsanullah Ehsan is a former spokesman of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and later Jamaat-ul-Ahrar. As a spokesperson of the groups, Ehsan would use media campaigns, social media networks and call up local journalists to claim responsibility for terrorist attacks on behalf of the groups. He was initially a spokesman for the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). In 2014, he left TTP after he had developed ideological differences with the TTP leadership following the appointment of Fazlullah as the leader of the group. He later co-founded Jamaat-ul-Ahrar and became its spokesman. In 2015, as a spokesman of Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, he condemned Fazlullah-led Tehrik-e-Taliban attack on a school in Peshawar.

Events in the year 2014 in Pakistan.

Khalid Mehsud was the deputy leader of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan and the leader of the Mehsud faction of the Taliban in South Waziristan, Pakistan. He was formerly the chief of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan's South Waziristan chapter. Pakistani intelligence officials reported that he had been killed along with other 12 militants on 25 November 2015 in a drone strike carried out by the United States. Azam Tariq, spokesperson for the Sajna faction of TTP denied that he had been killed. He was killed in a drone strike on 8 February 2018 in North Waziristan, near the border with Afghanistan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jamaat-ul-Ahrar</span> Organization

Jamaat-ul-Ahrar was a terrorist organization that split away from Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan in August 2014. The group came to prominence after it claimed responsibility for the 2014 Wagah border suicide attack. In August 2020, it merged back to TTP.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2014 Peshawar school massacre</span> Terrorist attack in Peshawar, Pakistan

On 16 December 2014, six gunmen affiliated with the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) conducted a terrorist attack on the Army Public School in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar. The terrorists, all of whom were foreign nationals, comprising one Chechen, three Arabs and two Afghans, entered the school and opened fire on school staff and children, killing 149 people including 132 schoolchildren ranging between eight and eighteen years of age, making it the world's fifth deadliest school massacre. Pakistan launched a rescue operation undertaken by the Pakistan Army's Special Services Group (SSG) special forces, who killed all six terrorists and rescued 960 people. In the long term, Pakistan established the National Action Plan to crack down on terrorism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2014 Kunar Offensive</span> Armed conflict of the War in Afghanistan

2014 Kunar Offensive refers to a 2014 armed conflict of the War in Afghanistan, between the Afghan Army and a terrorist group, Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). It occurred in the Dangam district of eastern Kunar province, in Afghanistan bordering on Pakistan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2015 Karachi bus shooting</span> Terrorist attack in Karachi, Pakistan

On 13 May 2015, eight gunmen attacked a bus travelling in Safoora Goth, Karachi, Sindh in Pakistan. The shooting left at least 46 people dead. All of the victims were of the Ismaili Shia Muslim minority, suggesting the attack was a targeted killing of sectarian nature.

On 20 January 2016, four terrorists opened fire at Bacha Khan University near Charsadda, Pakistan. It is located in the Charsadda District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. At least 22 people were killed and over 20 others were wounded. Over 200 students were rescued from the premises, while the terrorists were killed by security forces. The Tariq Geedar Afridi faction of the Tehrik-i-Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">August 2016 Quetta attacks</span> Terror attack in Pakistan

On 8 August 2016, terrorists attacked the Government Hospital of Quetta in Pakistan with a suicide bombing and shooting. They killed more than 70 people, mainly lawyers, and injured more than 130 others. The fatalities were mainly advocates (lawyers) who had assembled at the hospital where the body of Advocate Bilal Anwar Kasi, the president of the Balochistan Bar Association, was brought after he was shot dead by an unknown gunman. Responsibility for the attack has been claimed by various Islamist groups like Jamaat-ul-Ahrar and the Islamic State. Between 70 and 94 people were killed and over 120 injured. 54 of those killed were lawyers.

Operation Radd-ul-Fasaad was a combined military operation by the Pakistani military in support of local law enforcement agencies to disarm and eliminate the terrorist sleeper cells across all states of Pakistan, started on 22 February 2017. The operation aimed to eliminate the threat of terrorism, and consolidating the gains of Operation Zarb-e-Azb which was launched in 2014 as a joint military offensive. It was further aimed at ensuring the security of Pakistan's borders. The operation underwent active participation from the Pakistan Army, Pakistan Air Force, Pakistan Navy, Pakistan Police and other Warfare and Civil Armed Forces managed under the Government of Pakistan. More than 375,000 intelligence-based operations had been carried out as of 2021. This operation has been mostly acknowledged after Operation Zarb e Azb.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Noor Wali Mehsud</span> Fourth and current emir of the Pakistani Taliban (2018-present)

Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud, also known as Abu Mansoor Asim, is a Pakistani Deobandi Islamic scholar, jihadist, cleric and jurist who is the 4th emir of the Pakistani Taliban. On 22 June 2018, Mehsud was appointed as the emir of TTP after the assassination of former emir Mullah Fazlullah in a US drone strike in Kunar, Afghanistan.

Pakistan and Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan peace talks was a ceasefire negotiation between the Pakistani government and banned terrorist organization namely Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan. Its goal is ending a two-decades long war and hostilities in Pakistan. The talks are held in western Khost province of Afghanistan while the Taliban government played crucial role to bring both parties on the dialogue table. In October 2021 then-Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan expressed his view that "...if TTP surrender and accept Pakistan's law, then they will be free from charges." However, TTP denied the state of prime minister.

On 16 April 2022, the Pakistani military conducted predawn airstrikes on multiple targets in Afghanistan's Khost and Kunar provinces. Afghan officials said the attacks killed at least 47 civilians and injured 23 others. Initial reports described the attacks as either rocket strikes or aerial strikes carried out by a number of aircraft of the Pakistan Air Force, and Afghan officials claimed the operation was carried out by Pakistani military helicopters and jets. Pakistani officials initially denied Pakistan carried out the airstrikes, but Pakistani security officials later claimed the airstrikes involved drone strikes from inside Pakistani airspace, and that no aircraft were deployed. Some reports said the Pakistani airstrikes also targeted parts of Paktika Province.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2024 Afghanistan–Pakistan skirmishes</span> Series of armed skirmishes between Afghanistan and Pakistan

The 2024 Afghanistan–Pakistan skirmishes were a series of armed clashes consisting of cross-border airstrikes and exchanges of gunfire between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The conflict also separately includes the BLA, and Pakistani Taliban. The skirmishes took place over many locations along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, including North Waziristan, South Waziristan, Wana, Dera Ismail Khan, Shangla, Khost, and Paktika. Subsequent attacks were also launched in Turbat and Gwadar in Balochistan province, by the Balochistan Liberation Army. Militant attacks on CPEC and Pakistani military bases accommodating US aircraft pose a threat to Chinese and American interests in Pakistan.

References

  1. ↑ "9 Chinese, 4 Pakistanis killed in Dasu bus tragedy". 15 July 2021.
  2. ↑ "Chinese company stops work on Dasu project after bus incident".
  3. ↑ "Dasu bus incident investigation in "final" stage: Rashid". 17 July 2021.
  4. ↑ Ahmad, Jibran; Tian, Yew Lun (2021-07-14). "Pakistan bus blast kills 13 including Chinese; Beijing blames bomb". Reuters. Retrieved 2021-12-17.
  5. ↑ "Two get death in Pakistan for attack targeting Chinese engineers". Al Jazeera. 15 November 2022.
  6. ↑ "'Indian-Afghan nexus' behind Dasu bus attack: Qureshi". Dawn(Newspaper). Islamabad. 12 August 2021. Retrieved 14 August 2021.
  7. ↑ "RAW, NDS nexus behind Dasu attack: FM". The Express Tribune. Islamabad. 12 August 2021. Retrieved 14 August 2021.
  8. ↑ "Mastermind of Dasu terrorist attack killed in Afghanistan". G News Network. 12 July 2023.
  9. ↑ "Dasu terror attack 'mastermind' killed in Afghanistan". The Nation. 12 July 2023.
  10. ↑ "TTP commander involved in attack on Chinese installations killed". Aaj English TV. 12 July 2023.
  11. ↑ "TTP commander, responsible for attacks on Chinese installations, shot dead in Afghanistan". Daily Pakistan Global. 12 July 2023.
  12. ↑ "Two to hang for Dasu terror attack". The Express Tribune. 12 November 2022.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.