QUETTA/PESHAWAR: Pakistan suffered the loss of 21 individuals, predominantly military personnel, following three separate militant assaults on police and security forces conveys in the western provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan on Friday, as confirmed by senior government functionaries and official statements.
The country has experienced an uptick in militant attacks since the year’s beginning, with a concentration of these violent incidents occurring in the two provinces along the Afghan border.
Despite the conclusion of nearly two decades of conflict following the withdrawal of international forces in August 2021, Afghanistan remains mired in crisis.
Pakistani officials have repeatedly asserted that the militants targeting their country operate from the neighboring state, urging the Taliban government in Kabul to prevent their territory from being used as a staging ground for such attacks.
“On 3 November 2023, 2 vehicles of security forces moving from Pasni to Ormara in [Balochistan’s] Gwadar District, were ambushed by the terrorists,” the army’s media wing, ISPR, said in a statement. “14 x soldiers embraced shahadat [martyrdom] in the unfortunate incident.”
Balochistan, where Pakistan and China are jointly undertaking infrastructure development and regional connectivity projects, has long been a battleground for a low-level insurgency.
Baloch nationalists argue they are fighting against the unfair extraction of the province’s resources by the federal government, an accusation Islamabad denies.
Baloch separatist groups have also expressed opposition to Pakistan’s decision to build a strategic port in Gwadar, where the recent attack took place, to gain economic advantage in the region and tap Central Asian markets.
Speaking to Arab News, the deputy commissioner of Gwadar, Major (r) Aurangzaib Badini, said the attack took place at 3pm near Pasni.
He informed the convoy was “ambushed by terrorists with an IED [improvised explosive device] blast and gunfire attacks.”
Pakistan’s caretaker interior minister Sarfraz Bugti condemned the incident in a statement circulated by his office.
“The new wave of terrorism is a matter of concern,” he said, adding that Pakistan would continue to fight until the end of militant violence.
Earlier in the day, police and security forces also came under two separate attacks in Dera Ismail Khan district of northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, resulting in seven fatalities.
The area’s Regional Police Officer, Nasir Hussain Satti, told Arab News one of the blasts was set off by a bomb planted on a motorbike, which exploded near a police van in a congested neighborhood of the city.
“The powerful blast left six civilians dead and another 22 people, including two policemen, wounded,” he informed. “It was a planted device with initial investigations suggesting the use of eight to 10 kilograms of explosives.”
Footage released by Rescue 1122 officials shortly after the incident captured a chaotic scene, with ambulances transporting the injured to hospitals.
Mujtaba Ahmad, a property shop owner near the blast site, described the explosion as powerful enough to rattle the entire marketplace.
He informed most shops were closed for Friday prayers with many people inside mosques at the time of the blast, a factor that likely prevented further casualties and damage.
“Initially, when the explosion occurred, people didn’t know what had happened but they started running,” he continued. “When the cloud of dust settled after the blast, we saw people in blood and damaged motorcycles.”
The second blast, according to the police officer, took place in Takwarra, a small settlement on the outskirts of Dera Ismail Khan, targeting a security convoy which left soldier dead and another wounded.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s caretaker information minister Feroze Jamal Shah told Arab News the militant attacks during the day had led to precious loss of life, saying medical centers across the district were put on high alert after the explosions.
Expressing grief over the two incidents, he said the government would not bow to militants and continue to fight them.
“The blasts martyred several people and wounded 23,” he added. “We condemn both acts of terrorism in the strongest words. I have directed the district administration to provide best medical care to the wounded.”
Militant attacks in western Pakistan leave 21, including 15 security personnel, dead
https://arab.news/zsjdd
Militant attacks in western Pakistan leave 21, including 15 security personnel, dead
- Militants ambushed two vehicles of security forces moving in Balochistan’s Gwadar district, killing 14 soldiers
- Seven people also lost their lives and 23 injured in dual attacks on security convoys in Dera Ismail Khan district
Motorway police book popular Pakistani YouTuber ‘Ducky Bhai’ for driving with his feet
- Saadur Rehman, aka Ducky Bhai, violated traffic rules, endangering his life and that of others, say police
- Rehman is one of Pakistan’s most prominent YouTubers, having amassed over 8.38 million subscribers
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s motorway police have booked popular YouTuber Saadur Rehman, more commonly known as “Ducky Bhai,” for performing dangerous stunts while driving a car, state-run media reported this week.
As per a first information report (FIR) registered at the Chakri police station in Pakistan’s eastern city of Rawalpindi on Apr. 19, Rehman uploaded a video from his social media account weeks earlier in which he can be seen driving on the motorway, with his feet resting on the steering wheel while his eyes were closed.
“The National Highways and Motorway Police (NHMP) on Saturday initiated legal action against popular YouTuber Saadur Rehman–popularly known as Ducky Bhai–for performing dangerous stunts while driving on the motorway,” state-run Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) reported.
As per the FIR, a case against Rehman has been registered under Article 67 (driving recklessly or dangerously) of the National Highway Safety Ordinance (NHSO) 2000, and Section 279 (rash driving or riding on a public way) of the Pakistan Penal Code.
APP said the motorway police registered a case against Rehman after his video went viral on social media, drawing “heavy criticism” from users who condemned his “reckless behavior.”
“The video in question clearly shows a driver violating traffic rules and endangering not only his own life but also that of others,” a motorway police spokesperson was quoted as saying by the APP.
“We have taken serious notice of this violation and are proceeding with legal action.”
The spokesperson added that the video had been geo-located and verified and that appropriate sections of the law were being invoked in the FIR.
Rehman is one of Pakistan’s most popular YouTubers. He has uploaded over 750 videos on the video-sharing platform and has amassed over 8.38 million subscribers.
Pakistan says 44 million vaccinated in ongoing anti-polio nationwide campaign
- Pakistan launched this year’s second nationwide polio vaccination campaign from Apr. 21-27
- Vaccination coverage reaches 97 percent in Punjab and Sindh, 99 percent in KP and Balochistan
ISLAMABAD: Pakistani authorities have administered polio drops to over 44 million children in the country’s ongoing nationwide vaccination drive, state-run media reported this week.
Pakistan launched a nationwide campaign from Apr. 21-27 to vaccinate over 45 million children against polio. The country reported 74 cases in 2024 and has planned three major vaccination drives in the first half of this year.
The current campaign is the second of 2025, with a third set to begin from May 26 to June 1.
“The government has successfully administered anti-polio drops to over 44 million children across Pakistan in five days during ongoing vaccination drive,” the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) reported on Saturday.
Pakistan’s National Emergency Operations Center (NEOC) said the ongoing polio vaccination campaign is being conducted simultaneously in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The APP report said the ongoing vaccination coverage has reached 97 percent in Punjab and Sindh provinces and 99 percent in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces.
“In the federal capital Islamabad, 99 percent of the target has been achieved while Azad Jammu and Kashmir reported 100 percent coverage, and Gilgit-Baltistan achieved 99 percent,” it added.
The report said the NEOC expected another one million children to be vaccinated by Apr. 27.
“Parents have been urged to fully cooperate with polio workers and ensure that all children under the age of five receive polio drops during every campaign,” the APP said.
Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan remain the last polio-endemic countries in the world. In the early 1990s, Pakistan reported around 20,000 cases annually, but by 2018, the number had dropped to eight. Six cases were reported in 2023 and only one in 2021.
Pakistan’s polio eradication program, launched in 1994, has faced persistent challenges, including vaccine misinformation and resistance from some religious hard-liners who claim immunization is a foreign conspiracy to sterilize Muslim children or a cover for Western espionage.
Militant groups have also repeatedly targeted and killed polio vaccination workers.
No handshake at muted India-Pakistan border ceremony
- Relations between Pakistan, India have soured after Apr. 22 attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir
- For years, Attari-Wagah border in Punjab separating India from Pakistan has been a hugely popular tourist attraction
ATTARI: With swaggering soldiers giving high kicks set to booming patriotic music cheered on by crowds, it was the usual daily border ceremony between nuclear-armed arch-rivals India and Pakistan.
But there was one key thing at the show that was missing — the usual symbol of cooperation, a handshake between the opposing soldiers, did not take place.
Relations have plummeted after New Delhi accused Islamabad of backing an attack targeting tourists on April 22 — the deadliest attack on civilians in Indian-administered Kashmir for years.
Islamabad rejects the claims, and the countries have since exchanged gunfire, diplomatic barbs, expelled citizens — and ordered the border to be shut.
The iron gates that separate the two sides remain locked.
“It just fills you with passion and patriotic pride,” said Simarjeet Singh, 17, from the nearby Indian city of Amritsar, his face painted with the national tricolor flag.
Many fear the risk of a military escalation in the coming days.
For years, the Attari-Wagah border in Punjab has been a hugely popular tourist attraction.
Visitors from both sides come to cheer on soldiers goose-stepping in a chest-puffing theatrical show of pageantry.
Numbers were muted at the sunset show on Saturday, but thousands of Indians still came to show their loyalty to their nation.
“There were people from all over who looked and dressed different but were cheering and screaming at the same time — for our country and the soldiers,” Singh said, who came with his friends from college.
Cheering crowds still filled the stadium-like space around the gates with noise, at least on the Indian side, where on Saturday some 5,000 people — about a fifth of full capacity — watched.
There was only a small fraction of the support on the Pakistani side.
Enthusiastic spectators sang in chorus, waving flags and chanting “India Zindabad,” or “Long live India.”
The frontier was a colonial creation at the violent end of British rule in 1947 which sliced the sub-continent into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan.
The daily border ritual has largely endured over the decades, surviving innumerable diplomatic flare-ups and military skirmishes.
Reena Devi, 54, and PK Nath, 70, tourists from Tezpur in India’s northeastern state of Assam, are part of a tour of the country.
“We are just so excited to be here,” Devi said. “We just wanted to see this ceremony and experience being at the border with Pakistan.”
Nath said she and her group planned to visit a Hindu site in Jammu and Kashmir.
“Some of us are now a little apprehensive about the security there,” she said.
Nath said he “totally supported” New Delhi’s decision to expel Pakistani citizens and to shut down the border.
“You can’t send people to kill here and still not expect any response,” Nath said.
“We don’t know what will happen next but we are sure that the government would do the right thing,” he added.
As the energetic masters of the ceremony goaded the crowd, the Indian soldiers in red-fanned hats stomped up to the locked gate, kicking their legs up — with Pakistanis doing the same on the other side.
Aside from the ceremony, Indian and Pakistani citizens have been crossing the border since both sides canceled visas before India’s April 29 deadline to leave — tearing apart families with relations in both nations.
“There is obvious anxiety right now,” said Harpal Singh, an Amritsar-based taxi driver who regularly brings visitors to the ceremony, insisting the spectacle was still worth coming to see.
“There was no one who didn’t come back impressed and excited,” he said.
KT Ramesh, 57, from Kozhikode in the southern state of Kerala, said that even the scaled-down ceremony “was worth it.”
“There was no shortage of passion among our people,” Ramesh said.
He said that he’d “seen anger” about the attack in Kashmir “in whoever I spoke with, from our hotel staff to the taxi driver and other tourists here.”
“Everyone was talking about it,” he said. “We don’t like a war but this time we must teach them a lesson.”
British Pakistani ex-Formula champion hopes to bridge motorsport gap between Muslim countries and Europe
- Enaam Ahmed, 25, is a former British Formula 3 champion and European and World Carting Champion
- Since October 2024, Ahmed has been training young racers from the Middle East in his Dubai academy
KARACHI: British Pakistani racer Enaam Ahmed, a former British Formula 3 champion with various racing titles under his belt, said on Thursday he aims to bridge the gap in motorsport between Muslim countries and Europe by training young drivers from the Middle East.
Ahmed, 25, was born to Pakistani parents in London where he started racing on Go-Kart tracks at the age of 8. His passion for racing grew with time and at the age of 12, he became the British Formula 3 champion. Still a teen at 14, he became a European and World Karting Champion.
After spending a lot of time in Saudi Arabia and Dubai the past year, Ahmed and his friend Maz Chughtai from Pakistan started an academy, “Origin Motorsport,” in October 2024 to train young racers from the Middle East.
“At the moment, the GCC and the Muslim world are quite behind in racing compared to Europe,” Ahmed told Arab News over the phone. “I want to try and help bring it up to the same level, which will happen very quickly.”
Ahmed praised Saudi Arabia and the UAE for investing in motorsport. Ahmed was in Diriyah, Saudi Arabia, for a Formula E race last year where he met Martin Whitaker, the head of the Saudi Motorsports Company.
“We talked about the future for motorsports in the GCC and in Saudi Arabia,” the British Pakistani driver said. “And now they are developing another racing track outside of Riyadh in addition to a few go-karting tracks.”
The academy is officially registered in Dubai, according to Ahmed, with five drivers from various countries in the Middle East training with them. Ahmed is the coach of their team, which is also named Origin Motorsports, while his friend Chughtai is the team’s principal.
While Saudi Arabia is investing in motorsport, Ahmed said there is no racing infrastructure in the Kingdom, prompting Saudi drivers to come to Dubai for the sport.
“The racing track in Saudi Arabia will be finished in Qiddiya, the entertainment and tourism megaproject in Riyadh,” he said. “Once it’s finished, I’ll start training the drivers over there.”
Ahmed is currently training young drivers in his academy for the UAE National Championship racing competition. He says most of the drivers from Dubai and in the Middle East he works with are from the UK.
While Saudi Arabia and the UAE are headed in the right direction for motorsport, Ahmed lamented the lack of opportunities for drivers in Pakistan essentially due to a lack of infrastructure for motorsport in the country.
“The infrastructure to give the opportunity to the young drivers is something we don’t have in Pakistan,” Ahmed explained. “Without the infrastructure, you will never find the talent.”
The Pakistani driver hoped he would someday get to train young racers from Pakistan other than those from the Middle East.
“Because they can’t do that in Pakistan,” he said. “Even though there are tracks, none of the race tracks in the country are to a good standard.
“There is no official racing in Pakistan. It’s just hobby racing.”
He said the next generation of racers in the GCC countries is “growing quite a lot” and that the young drivers under his tutelage are performing well.
“They all have a lot of potential, and they are very good to work with,” Ahmed said.
And given that he is a former world champion, he gets a lot of recognition from the young racers he trains.
“Wherever I go, they see it like I am the first Muslim world champion in the field.,” he said. “They all come to me, and they want to be trained by me.
“I wanted to be in a Muslim country and train Muslim drivers. That’s my real passion.”
Azad Kashmir warns of flooding in river Jhelum as India releases water amid tensions
- Jhelum river flows from Indian-administered Kashmir into Azad Kashmir and then Pakistan’s Punjab province
- Suspension of Indus Waters Treaty means India can stop sharing crucial information on release of water
ISLAMABAD: The government in Pakistan-administered Kashmir on Saturday warned of flooding in river Jhelum after India’s unannounced discharge of additional water, amid surging tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbors.
India announced this week it will suspend the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty under which the two neighbors regulate the water share of six rivers in the Indus Basin. This decision was taken after New Delhi blamed Pakistan for being involved in an attack in Indian-administered Kashmir that killed 26 tourists this week. Pakistan denies the allegations.
The Jhelum river flows from Indian-administered Kashmir into Azad Kashmir and then Punjab. Suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty means India can stop sharing crucial information and data on the release of water from barrages/dams or on flooding.
“Due to India releasing more water than usual into the Jhelum River, there is moderate flooding,” a spokesperson of the Azad Kashmir government said in a press release on Saturday.
The spokesperson urged residents to avoid visiting areas near the Jhelum river due to the rising water levels.
As per the Indus Waters Treaty, Pakistan has rights to the western rivers— Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab— for irrigation, drinking, and non-consumptive uses like hydropower. India controls the eastern rivers— Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej— for unrestricted use but must not significantly alter their flow.
India can use the western rivers for limited purposes such as power generation and irrigation, without storing or diverting large volumes. Experts, like Hassaan F. Khan from Tufts University, argue that India lacks the infrastructure to divert large amounts of Indus waters.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Saturday warned attempts to reduce or divert the flow of water belonging to Pakistan under the Indus Waters Treaty would be “responded to with full force.”
“Our valiant armed forces remain fully capable and prepared to defend the country’s sovereignty and its territorial integrity against any misadventure as clearly demonstrated by its measured yet resolute response to India’s reckless incursion in February 2019,” he said.
