ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani foreign affairs ministry said on Sunday it had activated a crisis management cell to facilitate Pakistani nationals stranded in Lebanon, amid continuing Israeli attacks against Hezbollah.
Israel struck more targets in Lebanon on Sunday, pressing Hezbollah with new attacks after killing the Iran-backed group’s leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, and a string of its other top commanders in an escalating military campaign.
The attacks have dealt a succession of blows to Hezbollah after almost a year of cross-border fire, killing much of its leadership and revealing gaping security holes. Israel’s defense minister is now discussing widening the offensive.
Amid continuing Israeli strikes, Pakistan’s foreign affairs ministry said Islamabad and its embassy in Beirut were making efforts to facilitate Pakistani nationals caught up in the crisis situation in Lebanon.
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has activated its Crisis Management Unit,” it said in a statement. “Pakistani nationals in Lebanon and their families are encouraged to contact the CMU.”
The CMU could be reached at landline: 051-9207887 and email: [email protected], according to the statement.
Pakistani embassy in Beirut is available round the clock at mobile phone or WhatsApp numbers: 00961-81669488 and 00961-81815104, and email: [email protected].
Israel’s intensifying bombardment has increased fears the conflict could spin out of control, potentially drawing in Iran as well as the United States, Israel’s closest ally.
Following the death of Nasrallah — killed in a massive airstrike in Beirut on Friday — Hezbollah launched new fusillades of rockets into Israel, while Iran said his death would be avenged.
The fighting between Hezbollah and Israel, their latest round of warfare in four decades of on-off conflict, has been waged in parallel with Israel’s war on Gaza since the Palestinian group’s attack on Israel on Oct. 7 last year.
Islamabad activates crisis management cell for Pakistanis stranded in Lebanon
https://arab.news/v2y22
Islamabad activates crisis management cell for Pakistanis stranded in Lebanon
- The development comes amid continuing Israeli attacks on Lebanon that have killed top Hezbollah leadership
- Pakistani foreign ministry shares landline numbers and email addresses for Pakistanis to reach out for help
Pakistanis protesting Hezbollah leader’s killing clash with Karachi police
- Protesters chanted ‘Death to America,’ while carrying posters of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah
- Police said seven officers were injured in clashes and were receiving treatment in hospital
KARACHI: Stone-throwing protesters in Pakistan’s southern city of Karachi clashed on Sunday with police who stopped them from reaching the US consulate during demonstrations over Israel’s killing of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.
Protesters chanted “Death to America,” while carrying posters of Nasrallah.
Police said seven officers were injured and receiving treatment in hospital from stones thrown by protesters.
“Police had to resort to baton charging and tear gas against those who breached the cordons in a bid to disperse the crowd,” said Police Deputy Inspector General Asad Raza, adding that protesters had tried to reach areas beyond cordons agreed upon with organizers in advance.
He said police would register criminal cases against protesters who acted violently.
Pro-Iran Shiite religious political party Majlis Wahadatul Muslimeen had organized the rally of around 3,000 people in the country’s most populous city.
Following the death of Nasrallah — killed in an airstrike in Beirut on Friday — Hezbollah fired new fusillades of rockets into Israel, while Iran said his death would be avenged.
Gunmen kidnap 20 laborers from energy company camp in Pakistan’s southwest
- It’s the second assault in as many days in restive Balochistan province, where separatist and militants are stepping up their insurgency
- The workers were staying in a camp set up by a private energy company when armed men seized them, torching bulldozers and other machinery
QUETTA: Gunmen stormed a camp in Pakistan’s southwest and kidnapped 20 laborers, police said Sunday. It’s the second assault in as many days in restive Balochistan province, where separatist and militants are stepping up their insurgency against the central government.
The assistant commissioner of Musa Khel district, Dilraj Kalara, said the armed men entered the camp on Sunday morning, torching bulldozers and other machinery and seizing the men.
The workers were staying in a camp set up by a private energy company, Kalara said. Separatists accuse Islamabad of unfairly exploiting oil- and mineral-rich Balochistan at the expense of locals.
Nobody has claimed responsibility for the kidnappings or for the deaths of seven men who were fatally shot at their rented home a day earlier in Panjgur town, also in Balochistan.
All seven were from Punjab, which is in Pakistan’s east, and from the same family. Separatists have often killed workers and others from Punjab to force them to leave the southwest.
On Sunday, Punjab’s Information and Culture Minister Azma Zahid Bokhari said authorities were deeply upset by the Saturday killings.
“I want to know for how long Punjabis will be targeted in Balochistan,” Bokhari said at a press conference in Lahore. “I demand the chief minister ensure the safety and security of people from Punjab and take stern action against those targeting them.”
Muhammad Mubashir said eight members from his family had gone to Balochistan for work. Only one survived. They were aged between 20 and 40.
The seven were sleeping when two gunmen stormed the room with automatic weapons and began spraying the workers with bullets.
The survivor, Imran, was on the phone when the shooting started and immediately fled, according to another relative, Mudassir Aslam, who spoke to him after the incident.
“Three of them were getting married and their families were busy preparing for their weddings,” said Mudassir. “As soon as the news reached our family in Shujabad, there was chaos in our house. It was nothing less than a bomb going off.”
Pakistan expresses solidarity with Nepal after floods kill over 150
- Nepal has shut schools for three days after two days of heavy rain triggered massive landslides and floods
- The floods brought traffic and normal activity to a standstill in Katmandu, where 37 deaths were recorded
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Sunday expressed solidarity with Nepal after floods and landslides killed more than 150 people, the Pakistani foreign office said.
Nepal has shut schools for three days after two days of heavy rain across the Himalayan nation triggered landslides and floods, officials said, with 56 people still missing.
The floods brought traffic and normal activity to a standstill in the Katmandu valley, where 37 deaths were recorded in a region home to 4 million people and the capital.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with all who have lost loved ones and livelihood in the floods,” the Pakistani foreign office said in a statement. “Pakistan stands in solidarity with the government and people of Nepal in this moment of tragedy.”
Television images showed police rescuers in knee-high rubber boots using picks and shovels to clear away mud and retrieve 16 bodies of passengers from two buses swept away by a massive landslide at a site on the key route into Katmandu.
Weather officials in the capital blamed the rainstorms on a low-pressure system in the Bay of Bengal extending over parts of neighboring India close to Nepal.
Heavy rains triggered flash floods and killed nearly 350 in Pakistan this monsoon season that began in late June, according to the country’s disaster management authority.
Pakistan and other countries in South Asia have seen erratic changes in weather patterns in recent years that scientists have blamed on climate change.
In 2022, unusually heavy rains triggered floods in many parts of Pakistan, killing over 1,700 people, inflicting economic losses of around $30 billion, and affecting at least 30 million people.
Body of senior police officer’s son found in northwest Pakistan amid rising attacks against police
- On Sept. 8, unidentified gunmen killed two brothers of a police official in the Lakki Marwat district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
- No group has claimed responsibility for the killings, but the Pakistani Taliban have claimed a number of recent attacks in region
PESHAWAR: Police on Sunday recovered bullet-riddled body of the son of a senior police officer in a remote district of Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, an official said, amid rising attacks against police personnel and their relatives in the restive region.
The body was recovered from a hillside on the outskirts of KP’s Dera Ismail Khan district, according to local police station in-charge Habibullah Khan. The deceased’s father, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Sayed Marjan, has been serving in the nearby Tank district.
The development comes amid deteriorating law and order situation and a surge in militant attacks as well as targeted killings of police personnel and their relatives, which have sparked widespread protests in the restive province that borders Afghanistan.
“The body of Muhammad Nauman, the son of DSP Sayed Marjan, was recovered from a hillside near Abdul Khel, a village on the outskirts of Dera Ismail Khan, this morning,” Khan told Arab News on Sunday. “There were several bullet marks on the victim’s body, which was shifted to hospital for postmortem.”
This is the second such incident this month. On Sept. 8, unidentified gunmen killed two brothers of a police official in the Lakki Marwat district of the province, police said.
No group has claimed responsibility for the killings, but suspicion is likely to fall on the Pakistani Taliban, who have claimed a number of attacks in KP in recent months.
The attacks against police this month sparked protests in the Lakki Marwat and Bannu districts. According to official data, more than 80 policemen have been killed in attacks, ambushes and targeted killings in the province so far this year.
Last week, a roadside bomb hit a convoy of foreign diplomats visiting Swat, killing one police officer and injuring three others, officials said.
Officials in Islamabad say militants associated with the Pakistani Taliban are primarily responsible for violence in the region. Islamabad has even blamed Kabul’s Afghan Taliban rulers for “facilitating” anti-Pakistan groups, a charge Kabul denies.
Pakistani lawyers urge judges to distance themselves from proposed constitutional court
- Pakistan’s government is widely believed to establish a federal constitutional court by amending the constitution
- The matter has raised widespread concerns among independent lawyers, opposition parties and constitutional experts
ISLAMABAD: Hundreds of Pakistani lawyers on Sunday urged judges to distance themselves from a proposed federal constitutional court in the country, saying that any complicity in this regard would be tantamount to the “defacement” of the constitution.
Pakistan’s government this month sought to get a package of 52 history-making constitutional amendments passed in parliament but did not present it after failing to secure the required two-thirds majority needed for them to pass.
The proposed amendments are expected to establish a federal constitutional court, raise the retirement age of superior judges by three years and modify the process for the appointment of chief justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan.
The matter has raised widespread concerns among lawyers, opposition parties and independent experts who say the moves are aimed at increasing the government’s power in making key judicial appointments and dealing with the defection of lawmakers during house votes.
“An assault on our Constitutional compact is being cloaked in the thin garb of arguments grounded in the supremacy of law. These are arguments that do not withstand the slightest intellectual scrutiny, given any serious consideration,” a group of over 300 senior lawyers said in an open letter addressed to the judges of high courts and the Supreme Court of Pakistan.
“We urge you — the judges of our constitutional courts — not to recognize this proposed court if such a bill is passed. We urge those of you who may be hand-picked to serve on it not to do so. Complicity will be no defense of the Constitution: it will be its defacement.”
This week, Aqeel Malik, a government spokesman on legal affairs, said Pakistan’s ruling coalition would table the constitutional amendments package in parliament in the first week of October.
The opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party has alleged that the amendments are an attempt to grant an extension to incumbent Chief Justice of Pakistan Qazi Faez Isa, who is widely viewed to be aligned with the ruling coalition and in opposition to its chief rival, the PTI.
Pakistan’s defense minister this month rejected the allegations and said the amendments would address “constitutional imbalances,” adding that public representatives had the right to undo any “intrusions” into parliamentary powers and the constitution.
“We refuse to engage, in good faith, with any such ideas because they are not ideas rooted in good faith,” the lawyers said, in their open letter to the judges of Pakistan’s superior courts.
