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Pakistan Timeline - Year 2006

January 1

Four persons are killed and three children sustain injuries when a bomb exploded inside a house in the Mashkal area of Kharan district in Balochistan province.

January 2

At least three people are killed and eight others sustain injuries in clashes between paramilitary forces and Bugti tribesmen in Balochistan.

January 3

Security forces (SFs) killed two tribesmen and injured seven others in a shoot-out in the Dera Bugti district of Balochistan.

January 4

Three people are killed and four others sustain injuries during a clash between SFs and tribesmen around the Sui area of Balochistan.

January 5

Unidentified gunmen are reported to have killed eight tribesmen, including seven of a family, in two separate incidents in South Waziristan.

January 7

Terrorists armed with heavy weapons attacked a new Frontier Corps (FC) checkpoint on Khasokhel bridge near Mir Ali, the main town in North Waziristan, killing eight FC personnel.

Hours after the attack, aircraft attacked pro-Taliban cleric Maulana Noor Muhammad’s house in Saidgai village, three kilometers from the Afghan border, killing eight tribesmen and injuring 19 others.

Suspected insurgents fired more than 20 rockets at paramilitary camps in the Machh area of Bolan and Mand area of Makran division in Balochistan, killing at least one person.

January 10

Seven soldiers and 14 suspected terrorists are killed following an attack on a Frontier Corps outpost at Sarbanki in North Waziristan.

One Frontier Corps personnel is killed and two others sustained injuries in a gun-battle between tribesmen and SFs in the Loti gas field area of Balochistan province.

January 12

At least 15 people, including three personnel of the Frontier Corps, were killed and three others injured in an armed clash between the paramilitary force and armed tribesmen in the Pirkoh area of Dera Bugti district in Balochistan.

January 13

At least 18 people, mostly women and children, were killed and several others injured as suspected US planes fired missiles targeting three houses at Damdola, some 40 kilometers inside the Pakistani territory in Bajaur Agency.

January 14

Paramilitary forces launched another operation in the Marri area of Balochistan province using helicopter gun-ships and heavy weapons. Mir Balach Khan Marri, a member of the Balochistan Assembly, informed that SFs had been lobbing mortars and rockets at the small township of Kahan for the last two days in which 25 people, mostly women and children, had been killed and several others injured.

January 15

At least eight people were killed in clashes between armed men and SFs in the Kahan area of Kohlu district in Balochistan province.

Two men were killed after a landmine exploded at Jangzai village in the Bajaur Agency.

January 16

SFs killed three children in an attack at Kahan and other adjacent areas of Balochistan province, local tribesmen were quoted as saying in Daily Times.

January 18

A Frontier Corps (FC) soldier is killed and another sustains injuries in a landmine explosion in Pirkoh area of Balochistan province.

January 19

At least one person was killed when unidentified men fired more than 20 rockets at SF camps in the Machh area of Bolan and Mand area of Makran division in the Balochistan province.

January 20

Jamhoori Watan Party spokesperson Agha Shahid Hasan Bugti claimed that nine people were killed and 31 others injured in shelling on the town by SFs. He said paramilitary forces started massive shelling on the town at 11.30am, in which six children, two women and a man were killed and 23 others wounded.

January 23

Former Chief Minister of Balochistan, Sardar Attaullah Mengal, has claimed that Pakistani security forces are using chemical weapons in the province, according to Hindustan Times. Mengal, who addressed the media at the Karachi Press Club, supported his claim by showing pictures of Baloch civilians who he said had been hit by chemical weapons.

January 24

The Government freezes bank accounts of an Afghan trading group allegedly involved in funneling funds to the Taliban. The Federal Investigation Agency’s Special Investigation Group froze 15 bank accounts of Shirkat Special and Amria Food in Peshawar and Islamabad on the request of Interpol.

January 25

Six passengers were killed and five others sustained injuries when a minibus hit a landmine at Kharcha in the Dera Bugti district of Balochistan province.

January 29

The Uch power plant was shut down while operations of the Loti gas purification plant was affected when significant portions of the pipelines supplying gas to the two units were blown up in separate incidents in the Balochistan province.

January 30

Two Frontier Corps (FC) personnel are killed and 11 others sustain injuries when an improvised explosive device (IED) blast blew up their vehicle at Mubarik Shahi village near Miranshah, headquarters of North Waziristan.

January 31

At least one FC personnel was killed and four others sustained injuries in a landmine explosion near Pirkoh gas plant in the Dera Bugti district of Balochistan province.

February 1

Three persons are reported to have died when FC personnel returned fire during an attack on their outpost in the Dera Bugti district of Balochistan.

February 2

At least six people were injured on the third day of a gun-battle between paramilitary forces and Bugti tribesmen in the Dera Bugti town of Balochistan province.

February 3

Baloch insurgents are reported to have fired over 270 rockets on the town of Dera Bugti in Balochistan province, targeting communication and national installations. Dera Bugti administration officials said most of the rockets hit the Frontier Corps fort, its check-post, civil colony and Government offices.

February 4

Six people, including two security guards, are killed and 12 persons, including women and children, were injured in a missile attack on the Sui town in Balochistan province.

Three paramilitary soldiers were killed and another sustained injuries when suspected terrorists detonated an explosive device at Zarmilan in South Waziristan.

February 5

At least 14 people are killed and 19 injured when a powerful bomb exploded on a passenger bus in the Mastung district of Balochistan province. The explosion occurred when the Lahore-bound bus, which was carrying 34 passengers, reached Kolpur, some 55 kilometers from Quetta, capital of Balochistan.

February 8

A headless body of a person, identified as Kismat Khan, is found in Dabkot along with a message saying that spying for America and Pakistan "will result in this".

US President George W Bush waives restrictions under the Appropriations Act on exports to Pakistan, saying it would ease the democratic transition in the country and help combat terrorism.

February 9

At least 31 people are killed and 50 others wounded in a suspected suicide attack on a Muharram procession of Shia Muslims in the Hangu town of North West Frontier Province.

February 10

Three members of a family, including two women, are killed and four persons sustain injuries in a landmine explosion near Sangsilla in the Dera Bugti district of Balochistan province.

The death toll in the suicide attack on a Muharram procession at Hangu in North West Frontier Province is reported to have increased to 40.

February 11

Four people, including three personnel of the paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC), are killed and 15 others injured in three different incidents in the Turbat and Kohlu districts of Balochistan province.

At least three persons are killed in overnight sectarian clashes in the Hangu town of North West Frontier Province to raise the death toll to 43.

Two women are killed and four children injured by suspected US mortar fire following militants attack on an allied forces’ post in a tented nomad village in the Bangidar Sulemankhel area of North Waziristan.

February 13

Dr Ahmad Javed Khwaja, who had been detained for four months in the year 2002 on charges of alleged links with the Al Qaeda, is shot dead at Manawan near Lahore.

February 14

At least 9,300 seminaries belonging to the Ittehad-e-Tanzeemat Madaris-e-Deeniya (ITMD), an alliance of five religious boards, have been registered with the Government raising the number to 11,882 seminaries associated with the ITMD.

February 15

Three Chinese engineers and a Pakistani driver are killed in Hub city, about 700 kilometers south of Quetta, capital of Balochistan.

February 17

The Government reportedly put under house arrest Hafiz Mohamed Saeed, chief of the Lashkar-e-Toiba, and barred him from addressing a conference against the publication of blasphemous cartoons in several European newspapers.

At least six soldiers were injured when their vehicle hit a landmine at Tanai near Wana, headquarters of South Waziristan.

Three pipelines of the Loti and Pir Koh gas fields in Balochistan are blown up and a driver of the Oil and Gas Development Corporation was wounded when a landmine exploded in the same area.

February 20

Two Uzbeks and a local tribesman were killed during a clash involving foreign terrorists and local tribesmen at Eisokhel village in North Waziristan. The clash occurred when two Uzbek terrorists shot dead a local tribesman, identified as Shanzeb Khan. Following the killing, Khan’s nephew Mohammad Hanif opened fire on their rivals, killing one of them on the spot. Villagers of Eisokhel laid a cordon around the fleeing terrorist and subsequently killed him after a brief encounter.

The Government is reported to have ended the house arrest of Lashkar-e-Toiba chief, Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, but has asked him not leave Lahore. The Information Secretary of Jamaat-ud-Da’awah, Habibullah Salfi, told reporters that the Government had ended Saeed’s house arrest, but had banned him from traveling to any other district.

February 21

Three members of the Domki tribe were killed when a landmine exploded under a bullock-cart in the Chattar area of Nasirabad district in Balochistan.

Terrorists are reported to have shot dead two civilians, Badshah Khan and his brother Rasul Khan, in the border village of Angoor Adda in South Waziristan.

An anti-terrorism court in Karachi sentenced 11 activists of the banned Jundullah (God’s Brigade) outfit to death after finding them guilty of killing 10 people in an attack on the convoy of the Corps Commander Karachi on June 10, 2004.

February 22

Insurgents ambushed a military convoy at Pinjra Pull in the Balochistan province, killing two soldiers and injuring four others.

A pro-government tribal chief, Malik Arsallah Khan, chief of the Khuniakhel Wazir tribe, is killed in an ambush in Wana, headquarters of South Waziristan.

February 23

The North West Frontier Province Governor, Khalil-ur-Rehman, claimed in Miranshah that the Government has suspended operations in North Waziristan because it believes that tribesmen are able to restore peace and normalcy through their own customs and traditions.

February 24

A Frontier Corps (FC) personnel and a tribesman are killed in fighting near Dera Bugti in the Balochistan province.

February 25

The entire telecommunication system of Balochistan province came to a halt for five hours when insurgents damaged the optic fibre system at two different places near the Mastung district and Jacobabad.

February 26

Suspected terrorists are reported to have shot dead two police personnel and injured two others in an attack on a police patrol in the Tank district of North Waziristan.

February 28

President Pervez Musharraf is reported to have told during an interview with ABC News, that his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai had handed over a list of 40 wanted men along with their phone numbers and "we find that two-thirds of them are dead and it is just a total waste of time".

March 1

Security forces are reported to have killed at least 41 foreign terrorists, including their Chechen ‘commander’, in a raid carried out by gunship helicopters on their hideout at Danday Saidgai village in North Waziristan, bordering Afghanistan. Four Pakistani tribesmen and a soldier were also killed and an unspecified number of them were injured in the raid and subsequent exchange of fire between the two sides.

March 2

A US diplomat, identified as David Fyfe, his Pakistani driver and a Rangers official were killed and 54 persons injured in a suicide car bombing near the US consulate in Karachi, a day before the US President George W. Bush reaches Pakistan.

March 3

Two girls, Mah-Noor Ejaz and Mussarat Nazir, were killed and three other children sustained injuries in a hand-grenade attack in the PTCL Colony area of Quetta, capital of Balochistan province.

Immigration officials arrested a Belgian national on terrorism charges at Lahore Airport while he was trying to board a plane for Islamabad. Micha Ballen is wanted by Belgium for involvement in several crimes and is believed to be a terrorist. He came to Lahore from London on February 7 by a Gulf Air flight and was staying at a seminary near the city.

March 4

More than 100 terrorists were reportedly killed in two separate operations by security forces at Miranshah and Mir Ali in North Waziristan. Three SF personnel died while nine others were wounded in the operation. The main army base at Miranshah came under heavy rocket fire from terrorists, who also occupied the main Miranshah Bazaar, various Government offices and the telephone exchange. SFs retaliated with helicopter gun ships and heavy artillery fire killing at least 85 terrorists. Meanwhile, unidentified men ambushed a SF convoy in Mir Ali, killing two soldiers and injuring seven others. The troops killed 25 terrorists in retaliation.

March 6

At least 19 terrorists are reported to have died in clashes between with the army in Miranshah, headquarters of North Waziristan.

March 7

The Political Agent in North Waziristan, Syed Zaheerul Islam, survived an assassination attempt, when his vehicle was attacked near Mirali. However, one of his guards was killed while another sustained injuries in the attack.

March 9

Two Frontier Corps personnel were reportedly killed and another sustained injuries when terrorists fired rockets targeting their post at Tabbi near Mir Ali town in North Waziristan.

March 10

At least 29 people are reported to have died during a landmine explosion in the Dera Bugti district of Balochistan province. A wedding party, comprising some 35 people of a family, including women and children, was en route to Rakhni from Bekar when their tractor-trolley hit an anti-tank landmine near Dera Bugti.

Pakistan Army artillery shelled Khattay Killay village, 10 kilometers from Miranshah in North Waziristan, and gunship helicopters targeted terrorists’ positions following reports that two of the most wanted clerics, Maulvi Sadiq Noor and Maulvi Abdul Khaliq, and their supporters were hiding there. Military spokesperson, Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, claimed 25 terrorists were killed in the attack.

March 12

Authorities in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) are reported to have arrested eight terrorists in Muzaffarabad, including Mohammad Yousuf Shah alias Syed Salahuddin, chief of the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen and chairman of the United Jehad Council. According to Times of India, they were arrested a few days ago for protesting against Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's Kashmir policy.

March 16

The US State Department has reportedly sought confirmation from Pakistan of the arrest of Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, an Al Qaeda leader believed to be the mastermind of the Madrid bombings in March 2004.

A major power breakdown affected several districts of the Balochistan province and its capital Quetta in the early hours of March 16 when suspected insurgents blew up a pylon of the Quetta-Sibi transmission line and damaged two others.

March 17

One person, Nehal Khan, was killed during a landmine explosion in a village in the Jaffarabad district of Balochistan province

March 19

Seven persons, including three personnel each of the police and Frontier Constabulary, were killed and as many injured in the Dera Ismail Khan district of North West Frontier Province (NWFP) when a police vehicle was blown up through a remote-controlled device on Bannu Road.

Unidentified men fired upon three men picnicking in the Pir Ghaib area of Balochistan killing two of them and wounding another. In another incident, unidentified men also killed tribal elder, Haji Abdul Quddus Khan Sanjrani, at Girdi Jangal bazaar in Girdi Jangal.

Two soldiers were killed when a grenade exploded at a roadside military post near Miranshah in North Waziristan.

A ten-year-old boy was killed and another child injured in a bomb explosion near a police station in the Mardan City of NWFP.

March 20

Unidentified persons blew up the transmission tower of Radio Pakistan at Wana in South Waziristan.

March 21

Gas supply to Punjab and the NWFP was suspended from the Sui gas plant in Balochistan province after a gas pipeline was blown up in Doli, some 20km from the Sui township.

March 22

A pro-government cleric, Maulana Sibghatullah, is killed by gunmen in the Laddah subdivision of South Waziristan.

March 23

A man was killed and nine people, including two children, were injured in a bomb blast at a public telephone booth in the Kohlu town of Balochistan province.

March 24

20 terrorists were reportedly killed after security forces retaliated to an attack at Dattakhel in North Waziristan. One Frontier Corps personnel died and four army soldiers were wounded in the pre-dawn attack on the joint check-post of the paramilitary force and army.

March 26

Three persons were killed in an exchange of fire between security forces and insurgents in the Peshbogi area of Dera Bugti district of Balochistan.

Another insurgent was killed when his motorcycle hit a landmine as he tried to escape after the shootout near Sui in Balochistan.

March 27

The local Taliban executed a 25-year-old man for killing a taxi driver in South Waziristan under Sharia (Islamic law).

March 28

One person was killed and 16 others sustained injuries in a bomb blast in Peshawar, capital of the NWFP.

At least 25 persons were killed and as many injured in gun-battles between followers of two religious groups at Bara in the NWFP. The clashes at Sur Dand area in Khyber Agency commenced on March 27 when supporters of cleric Mufti Munir Shakir laid siege to the house of a staunch follower of rival cleric Pir Saifur Rehman. Mufti Shakir and Pir Rehman reportedly ran illegal FM radio channels and the clerics, who used abusive language against each other in sermons on their channels, had left the tribal region some time ago under Government pressure.

At least one person is reported to have been killed in heavy fighting between SFs and insurgents in the Kohlu district of Balochistan.

The police are reported to have arrested three cadres of the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, a terrorist group active in the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir, carrying explosives and ammunition at Tank near South Waziristan.

March 29

A villager was killed when a landmine exploded at Dera Murad Jamali in the Balochistan province.

Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehman Khalil, chief of the outlawed Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, was dumped in front of a mosque in the outskirts of Islamabad in an injured condition after being abducted.

March 30

Stray mortars hit several homes during fighting between pro-Taliban militants and security forces at village Hurmaz in North Waziristan, killing at least two villagers and injuring six persons.

A soldier of the Frontier Constabulary was killed and two other passengers injured when a bus of the Northern Areas Transport Corporation was ambushed at around 10pm on the Karakoram Highway in Gilgit.

One soldier was killed and four others sustained injuries in a landmine explosion at Mullah Bakhsh village in the Nasirabad district of Balochistan.

March 31

An employee of the Water and Power Development Authority was killed and three others wounded in a landmine explosion in the Mach area of Bolan district in Balochistan province.

April 2

13 people, including nine SF personnel, were killed and 28 others sustained injuries in a series of landmine blasts and attacks on troops in various parts of Balochistan province.

April 3

Eleven people, including three women and two suspected terrorists, were reportedly killed in three incidents in North Waziristan.

The Karachi Police arrested Mohammed Junaid, allegedly the ‘operations chief’ of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen Al-Almi, after a gun battle, said senior police official Raja Omar Khitab.

A Pakistani man, identified as Muhamed Abid Afridi, was sentenced on April 3 to nearly five years in prison for his role in a plot to obtain and sell Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to the Taliban and Al Qaeda

April 4

At least seven personnel of the Frontier Corps were killed and 11 injured in two landmine blasts in the Loti and Ghori areas of Dera Bugti district in Balochistan province on April 3 and 4, according to Nawab Akbar Bugti.

Five activists of the outlawed Sunni group Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan were sentenced to death by an anti-terrorism court in Karachi on charges of killing a police constable and an under-trial prisoner in an ambush on a prison van near the city courts on February 28, 2002.

April 5

Fourty-three terrorists and three soldiers were killed and 19 terrorists arrested after SFs retaliated to two attacks at two sites in North Waziristan. The terrorists reportedly first attacked a SF check-post in Dattakhel and another at Mana in the heavily forested Shawal region.

Canada deported three men with links to a Pakistan-based terrorist group and considered ‘a security risk’ who had earlier been convicted of trying to bomb a Hindu temple. Barry Adams and Amir Mohammed Ahmed — both from Trinidad and Tobago — and Dominican Republic-born Abdul Baqqer were arrested in 1991 while trying to enter Canada from the United States. All three are believed to be members of Jamaat-ul-Fuqra (JuF), "an extremist Pakistan-based religious sect," Canada Border Services Agency spokeswoman Anna Pape said.

April 6

Allama Hasan Turabi, a leader of the Shia Ulema Council and the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, escaped unhurt while four people, including his son and a guard, suffered injuries in a bomb blast in Karachi.

April 7

At least three persons were killed in landmine blasts and exchange of fire between security forces and insurgents in the Wadh area of Khuzdar district and Dera Bugti in Balochistan.

Pro-local Taliban tribal clerics in North Waziristan demanded the army pull out of the area while parliamentarians and officials of seven Frontier districts asked the Government to take military action against outlaws in the Malakand Agency.

April 9

The Government banned the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) after declaring it as a terrorist organisation for its alleged involvement in terrorist activities. According to evidence collected by the Federal Government, a notification said the BLA was involved in sabotage activities, including rocket attacks on national installations, civilian population and security forces. It was also accused of laying landmines in various parts of the province.

The Foreign Office denied a report implying that Pakistan had bribed members of the US 9/11 Inquiry Commission to drop from its finding negative references to Pakistan. "Pakistan has never indulged in the illegal activity of bribing or buying influence anywhere in the world," said a statement issued by the Foreign Office spokesperson in Islamabad.

April 10

Two persons, identified as Ahmed Yar and Muhammad Nawaz, was killed and 20 others sustained injuries in a bomb explosion at Kohlu in the Balochistan province.

The local Taliban is reported to have offered to enter into negotiations with the Government for peace in North Waziristan. "Troops should leave Waziristan, all arrested people should be released, wanted men be given amnesty, military operations be halted and innocent people should no longer be killed or their homes demolished and the ban on display of weapons be lifted," were some of the key Taliban demands read out from a letter by clerics at a Jirga (council) in Mir Ali.

April 11

At least 57 people, including prominent religious personalities, are reported to have died and more than 50 people sustained injuries in a suspected suicide bomb attack at Nishtar Park in Karachi.

April 12

Two persons, identified as Mian and Shahil, are killed and an equal number injured in a landmine blast in the Sui area of Dera Bugti district in the Balochistan province.

The Pakistan’s military claims that it had killed an unspecified number of militants including foreigners in an attack by Cobra gunship helicopters on a compound in village Anghar Killay near Miranshah in North Waziristan A top Al Qaeda man, Mosheim Musa Mutawwali Atwa, alias Abdur Rahman Mohajir is reported to have been killed in the attack.

The federal cabinet is informed that Taliban forces have thus far killed 150 pro-government tribal leaders in the North and South Waziristan Agencies and are openly challenging the writ of the Government by engaging a number of security forces’ personnel in the area.

April 15

A civilian is killed and another injured when a bomb exploded in a scrap shop in Ghulam Khan bazaar, 15 kilometers north of Miranshah in North Waziristan.

Security forces shot dead a suspected terrorist who had attacked a convoy of army vehicles in North Waziristan.

April 16

One person is killed and a Major of the Frontier Corps FC was wounded in an exchange of fire between security forces SFs and insurgents in the Toba Kakari area of Pishin district in Balochistan.

Suspected terrorists kill an Afghan national and two local tribesmen for allegedly spying for the US forces and supplying food to them in three different parts of North Waziristan.

President Pervez Musharraf while talking to Islamic scholars at the Governor’s House in Karachi stated that Pakistan does not need any Sipah, Jaish or Lashkar because the "Pakistan Army is the sole Sipah or Lashkar of this country.”

April 17

President Pervez Musharraf claims that the Government had resolved the Balochistan issue "amicably" and no law and order situation exists there anymore.

April 18

A prominent Shia cleric, identified as Fazal Hussain Alvi, and his driver are shot dead at Faisalabad in the Punjab province. Alvi had been banned from public speaking by the Government because of the fiery nature of his speeches.

April 19

Unidentified men kill two soldiers, identified as Fraz and Muhammad Murad, in the Awran area of Quetta, capital of Balochistan province.

April 20

At least eight paramilitary soldiers are killed and 27 others wounded when a convoy of SFs was ambushed near Miranshah in North Waziristan. At least five attackers were reportedly killed when soldiers retaliated.

One soldier and a suspected Al Qaeda operative, identified as Abu Marwan al-Suri, are killed and two soldiers sustain injuries during a shootout in the Bajaur Agency of FATA.

Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Sherpao informs that violence in Balochistan has claimed 158 lives since January 1, 2006.

April 21

Asmatullah Shaheen, a self-proclaimed Pakistani Taliban leader, invites people to come to Afghanistan to fight a 'holy war against US-led forces.'

April 22

Three civilians and one SF personnel are killed during an exchange of fire at Miranshah bazaar in North Waziristan.

April 23

Unidentified gunmen intercepted some Khassadars, part of a tribal security force, who were on their way to Razmak, at Dungan, 40 kilometers south of Miranshah, and opened fire at them, killing one of them and injuring two others. This is the first time that Khassadars have been attacked and killed in North Waziristan.

Syed Salahuddin, chief of the HM, is reported to have said that Pakistan had caused "irreparable damage" to the Kashmiri 'cause' by pursuing peace without winning more concessions from India.

April 24

One soldier is killed and 12 others wounded when unidentified terrorists fired a series of rockets at a military convoy after it stopped when a roadside bomb exploded close to it in North Waziristan.

In South Waziristan, terrorists fire rockets, mortars and small arms at a security post, triggering a gun battle with troops in which one terrorist is killed and two others wounded.

April 25

Cobra gunship helicopters hit the hideouts of suspected pro-Taliban militants in North Waziristan after a military convoy was attacked a day earlier, leaving up to seven persons dead.

A suspected Afghan bomb-maker and four members of his family are killed when an explosive device he was building blew up in their home on the outskirts of Quetta, capital of the Balochistan province.

JKLF Chairman, Amanullah Khan, said that the JKLF will contest the forthcoming PoK Legislative Assembly elections with the promise to fight for an independent Kashmir.

April 28

The United States puts two Pakistani charities on its terrorist list, saying they were fronts for the proscribed LeT. The State Department announced that it was freezing assets in the United States belonging to Jamaat-ud-Dawa and one of its affiliates, Idara Khidmat-i-Khalq.

President Pervez Musharraf says, "Extremism in a Talibanised form is what people are now going for. Mullah Omar and the Taliban have influence in Waziristan and it's spilling over into our settled areas."

April 29

According to official sources, the Pakistan Army is in full control of Waziristan, where 324 militants have been killed in operations over the past nine months. The officer in charge of operations in Waziristan, Major General Akram Sahi, insisted the army was in control in North Waziristan and said reports that the Taliban had taken over the area were "untrue". "The situation is not absolutely peaceful... But, to say that there is no writ of the government, it is absolutely wrong," said Sultan. He said some 31,000 regular troops and 14,000 paramilitary soldiers were deployed in North Waziristan.

May 1

The bullet-ridden body of senior tribal cleric, Maulana Janat Mir, is found nine days after his abduction by suspected Taliban militants from Mir Ali in North Waziristan. Mir, a pro-government cleric, was reportedly on a hit-list circulated by the Taliban some six months ago warning him and 27 others against "spying" on the militants for the Government. A message left on the body said: "Don’t think we have killed an innocent and aged cleric. We will soon release a CD to prove his guilt and his confession to his crimes."

The Taliban agrees to cease anti-government attacks after a three-member Tablighi delegation asked them to not attack during Tablighi congregations starting on May 4.

May 2

One person is killed and two others sustain injuries when two landmines exploded in Dera Bugti and Chattar area of Nasirabad district of Balochistan province.

Jamhoori Watan Party chief Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti claims that at least 19 SF personnel were killed and six others injured in a landmine blast in the Sarposh area of Dear Bugti district.

 A top Al Qaeda leader, Mustafa Setmarian Nasar, whose links stretch from Afghan terrorist training camps to extremist networks operating throughout Europe has reportedly been arrested in Pakistan.

Top officials of the Religious Affairs Ministry confess before a National Assembly standing committee in Islamabad that Pakistan was the only Muslim country where “no reliable data about exact numbers of deeni madaris (religious seminaries) is available”.

May 5 Suspected terrorists attack a SF check-post with two missiles in the Nakhtar area of Bajaur Agency in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, killing a soldier and injuring another.
May 6

Gunmen riding on a motorcycle killed a former regional Taliban leader, Mullah Samad Barakzai, in the Balochistan province.  

A senior US security official, Henry Crumpton, State Department coordinator for counter-terrorism, said that Pakistan is not doing enough to help neutralise the Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders who have found safe haven in its lawless tribal lands along the Afghan border.   

A message from Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is distributed in the Miranshah and Mir Ali bazaars of North Waziristan, calling on Pakistani Muslims to help “the oppressed people of Waziristan”.

May 7 At least three people are killed and seven others sustain injuries in four landmine explosions in different areas of Balochistan province. 
May 8 United States helicopter gun-ships wounded at least three Pakistani labourers in a missile strike against suspected Taliban operatives in South Waziristan. However, the US military later said that the air strike killed four suspected Taliban or Al Qaeda fighters.
May 9 Jamat-ud-Daawa chief Hafiz Mohammed Saeed accuses the United States of pandering to India and being anti-Islam by branding the charity he runs as a terrorist organisation.
May 10 Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto said that the arrest of Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden would eliminate the justification for President Pervez Musharraf remaining in power.
May 11

Six police personnel of the Anti-Terrorist Force are killed and 13 others sustain injuries in five powerful bomb explosions at the firing range of the Police Training College in Quetta, capital of Balochistan province. The banned Baloch Liberation Army claimed responsibility for the blasts.

Four Bugti tribesmen are killed and five others wounded in an armed clash between two factions of the Mandwani and Kalpar Bugtis in the Lanjo area of Dera Bugti district.

The Taliban releases a DVD, purporting to show suicide bombers shortly before they carry out attacks and calling for more strikes on US and British coalition troops. The film, a copy of which was seen by AFP, is called “Convoy of Martyrdom Seekers” and is sold at markets in northwest Pakistan and in eastern Afghanistan.

May 12 Six more bodies are found in the Khwaja Khizar mountains of South Waziristan, taking the death toll in May 8 US attack on Angoor Adda to 10.
May 13

Two minors are killed in a landmine explosion in the Gabaray area of Bajaur Agency in the FATA.

Afghanistan's Foreign Minister stated that Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden is living in Pakistan while Islamabad's efforts to arrest him can at best be described as “half hearted”.

May 14

A Government official, identified as Naib Tehsildar Shahzada Khan Bugti, who was abducted by unidentified persons on May 13 along with two Levies force personnel is found dead in the Dera Bugti district. 

Nawab Akbar Bugti claims that three Frontier Constabulary personnel were killed and five injured in clashes with his supporters in Barboz.

May 16

SFs kill at least 18 terrorists and blew up two vehicles near Miranshah in North Waziristan.

Two personnel of the Khasadar (a local security force), Habibullah and Shundi Gul, are shot dead in the Miranshah bazaar.

A wanted militant, Maulvi Sadiq Noor, has reportedly announced a ban on music and video shops and narcotic use in the Hamuzai area near Miranshah.

May 17

An army officer is killed and five others, including a captain, are injured when suspected militants attacked their convoy in the Maizer Madakhel area near Dattakhel, 25km west of the North Waziristan Agency headquarters.

May 19

Two paramilitary soldiers and a militant are killed in a grenade attack at a security check-post in North Waziristan's Mirali town.

Suspected terrorists shot dead a senior pro-government tribal chief, Tooti Gul, leader of the 30,000-strong Dawar tribe in Darpakhel district, in the Khaddi area of Miranshah in North Waziristan.

A top British Army officer, Colonel Chris Vernon, chief of staff for southern Afghanistan, accuses Pakistan of allowing the Taliban to use its territory as a headquarters for attacks on Western troops in Afghanistan.  However, an Inter-Services Public Relations spokesperson dismissed Vernon's remarks, terming them as “ludicrous”.

May 21

A tractor trolley carrying wheat crop hit a landmine near Patokh village in the Dera Bugti district of Balochistan province, leaving the driver Wahid Bakhsh Bugti dead and one Abdul Majeed Bugti injured.

The Afghan Foreign Minister said leaders of the Taliban movement and Al Qaeda are living in Pakistan where they organise attacks in Afghanistan.

Hizb-ul-Mujahideen ‘supreme commander' and chairman of the Muttahida Jihad Council (MJC) Syed Salahuddin said explosions from Karachi to Neelum valley and the present insurgency in Balochistan and North Waziristan are conspiracies of the Indian intelligence and its military.

May 22

An anti-terrorist court awards death sentence to four persons and life imprisonment to another three for being part of a plan to assassinate Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz. All the seven convicts would undergo ten years imprisonment under the Explosive Substance Act and pay a fine of Rupees 500,000 each.

May 24

An American television claims that Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden has left the Afghan mountains and was hiding in a valley in Pakistan. US TV said that it has received the confirmed report from Pakistani officials. According to the sources, the Al Qaeda chief has descended from the mountains along Pakistan-Afghanistan border and entered 40 miles deep in Kumrat Valley in Pakistani territory and was hiding in the valley in Pakistan's border district of Kohistan.

May 25

Two villagers are killed when a landmine blew up a bullock cart near Lehri in the Sibi district of Balochistan province. "It was an anti-tank mine planted on the mud-road," officials said.

May 26

Terrorists shot dead a carpet trader at Miranshah in North Waziristan, accusing him of spying for the Government.

Jamhoori Watan Party chairman Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti has said the procedure for Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline would "face difficulties" if carried out without the "participation of Baloch element".

The Karachi police arrests two suspects and seized 425 kg of explosive material comprising sodium nitrate, potassium, six fuses used in bombs, and 55,000 feet of safety fuse wire from the Mangopir area. City police chief Niaz Ahmed Siddiqui described the seizure as the biggest cache of explosive material recovered by the Karachi police yet.

May 27

Six SF personnel are killed and eight others sustain injuries during clashes with insurgents in the Dera Bugti area of Balochistan.

May 28

A bomb explosion occurs in a car, which had been stopped at a check-post in the Dattakhail area of North Waziristan. The driver and soldiers, Ashraf Khan and Nazer Khan, are killed and two other soldiers, Zulfiqar and Muntazim, wounded.

Five unidentified assailants attack a car, killing pro-government tribal elder Malik Takhti Khan in Mirali bazaar.

May 29

Three girls, Shabeena, Parveen Bibi and Maryam, are killed when they stepped on an anti-personnel mine at Akori village in the FATA area.

A six-year-old girl, identified as Maria, is killed and four women and two men sustain injuries in Mach when a powerful hand-grenade was hurled at a house in Makrani street.

May 30

Four people are killed in landmine blasts in the Dera Bugti district of Balochistan province. The blasts occurr in the Habib Rai, Putikh and Jodi areas.

Pro-government tribal elder, Malik Mehrdil, is shot dead at Chakmalai on the Wana-Jandola road in South Waziristan.

Pakistan and India exchange a list of wanted criminals but did not hold any discussion on the matter during the two-day Home Secretary level talks in Islamabad.

The Multan Anti Terrorism Court sentenced Qari Omar Hayat, an activist of the outlawed Sunni group LeJ, to death on sixteen counts of murder. Hayat was arrested for killing 16 Shias while they were listening to a sermon in a mosque in Muzaffargarh on January 4, 1999. The court also fined the convict Rs 4.8 million. However, 11 co-accused were acquitted of the charges against them because the prosecution failed to prove their involvement.

June 2

At least five soldiers and two suicide bombers were killed and seven soldiers sustained injuries when a car laden with explosives rammed into a military vehicle in the Bakakhel area of Bannu in NWFP. The army convoy was reportedly proceeding from Mirali in North Waziristan to its base camp in the Bannu district when the attack occurred.

Two people were killed and a woman sustained injuries when two rockets were fired at the house of one Noor Gul near Miranshah in North Waziristan.

June 4

Terrorists reportedly fired rockets at a military convoy in North Waziristan, killing two soldiers and injuring two others. Another soldier was accidentally killed and six were wounded in 'friendly fire' near a suspected militant hideout, following the attack.

Police have arrested 17 people, including five teenagers, on terrorism-related charges, a senior Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officer told a televised news conference in Toronto on June 3-morning. All the men arrested were residents of Canada and most were Canadian citizens, said Mike McDonell, Assistant Commissioner of the RCMP. The 12 adults and five youths were reportedly of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin.

June 6

Gas supply to vast areas in the country is suspended late evening when the main compressor plant at Sui in the Balochistan province was closed after the main pipeline feeding the plant was blown up by Baloch insurgents.

June 7

The Interior Ministry directs police chiefs of the four provinces, Islamabad and Northern Areas to provide security to prominent Shia leaders and Imambargahs (Shia place of worship). The ministry issues the directive after intelligence agencies reported that activists of the banned Sunni group LeJ were planning to kill Shia leaders.

June 9

A landmine explosion at Shakai valley in South Waziristan kills one person and wounded four others.

Eleven people are injured when a bomb exploded in a restaurant in the industrial town of Hub in Balochistan province.

Members of the treasury and opposition benches in the Balochistan Assembly unanimously passed a resolution, seeking royalty for the province in the multi-billion dollar Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project.

June 10

Pakistan Army helicopters bombed a terrorist hideout at a village in North Waziristan in a pre-dawn raid, killing up to 32 terrorists.

June 11

Five unidentified insurgents are killed and 11 injured when SFs retaliate to an attack at Dera Bugti in the Balochistan province.

The Pakistan Army raises the number of militants killed in a raid on a training camp a day earlier to more than 30, mostly foreigners including 22 Arabs, 3 Uzbeks and 7 local fighters linked to the Al Qaeda and the Taliban who also took part in attacks inside Afghanistan.

Local Taliban and religious leaders in North Waziristan issue public notices warning people of "serious repercussions" if they do not shun "un-Islamic activities" like watching movies and listening to music.

June 12

Five people are killed and 17 sustain injuries in a bomb blast at a hotel in Quetta, capital of Balochistan province. Mir Shoaib Nausherwani, the Balochistan Home Minister, blames the BLA for the blast. However, Sardar Akhtar Mengal, the Balochistan National Party President, accuses intelligence agencies of masterminding the blast in order to defame the Baloch leaders.

The alliance of seven agencies in the FATA rejects President Pervez Musharraf's proposal of appointing army officers as agency administrators and strengthening political agents.

Six activists of the outlawed Sunni group LeJ are arrested from Multan in the Punjab province. Police said that one of the arrested, identified as Nasir, had a Rupees 500,000 bounty on his head.

June 13

At least five insurgents are killed and seven others arrested during an operation launched by the FC in the Dera Bugti district of Balochistan province.

June 14

The headless body of an Afghan national, identified as Asim Khan, is found in the Thabi village, 20 kilometres north of Miranshah in North Waziristan.

SFs open fire on four suspected militants at the Army Camp in Miranshah, killing one of them.

Nearly 600 of the 917 foreign students from 46 countries in the International Islamic University in Islamabad are reportedly from Afghanistan, China and Somalia. There have been reports of repeated clashes in the university between foreign and Pakistani students.

June 15

Senior prison official, Amanullah Khan Niazi, and his three associates are gunned down in an ambush on a busy downtown road in Karachi town. Four passers-by and Niazi's brother, Habibullah Niazi, who was in the escort vehicle, sustain injuries.

Two SF personnel are wounded and an army vehicle is damaged in a landmine explosion at Darpakhel in North Waziristan. An unidentified woman is killed as SF personnel retaliated who also arrested two tribesmen. Local Taliban claims responsibility for the attack and said the blast had killed and injured several army soldiers.

A soldier is killed and six others wounded when an IED went off near an army convoy in the Speem Wam area.

Unidentified gunmen attack a paramilitary vehicle, killing one soldier in the Balochistan province.

June 16

Two female teachers and two children are killed, as gunmen fired through an open window into the residential quarters of Government Girls High School at Khwaga Cheri in the Ghaljo area of Upper Orakzai Agency.

Two civilians are killed in a landmine blast in the Nelakh vicinity in Sui in the Balochistan province.

Tribal journalist, Hayatullah Khan, who went missing on December 5, 2005 while investigating the death of an Al Qaeda operative, is found dead in North Waziristan.

Habibullah Niazi, brother of the Deputy Superintendent Karachi Central Prison, Amanullah Khan Niazi, injured during an ambush, succumbs to his injuries at Liaquat National Hospital bringing the number of dead to five. Amanullah Khan Niazi was killed during the same ambush on June 15.

June 18

SFs shot dead two suspected tribal militants, identified as Zainullah and Bulbul, and wounded another in response to an attack on their check-post in North Waziristan.

A self-proclaimed leader of militants, Haji Mohammad Omar, while speaking at a large gathering in Shakai near Wana, said peace could not return to the North and South Waziristan Agencies unless army left the region and said that suicide attacks and jihad in Afghanistan would continue till foreign troops left Kabul.

June 19

Militants shot dead a pro-Government tribesman, identified as Nazimuddin Gangikhel, near Wana in South Waziristan.

A Pakistan-born Australian citizen, Faheem Khalid Lodhi, who was accused of plotting a Jihad bombing campaign in Australia, is convicted on three terrorism-related charges and could face life in jail.

President Pervez Musharraf is reported to have claimed that life is returning to normal in Dera Bugti and nearby areas as terrorists have been eliminated from Balochistan.

June 21

Three FC personnel are killed and three others sustained injuries in an improvised IED blast on the Bannu-Mir Ali road in north Waziristan.

An Al Qaeda mission tasked with conducting suicide attacks targeting army installations and prominent personalities have arrived in Pakistan from Afghanistan, according to intelligence reports submitted to the Interior Ministry.

Another intelligence report submitted to the Interior Ministry said aides of Maulana Saifullah Akhtar of the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami and Maulana Fazalur Rehman Khalil of the banned Jamiat-ul-Ansar have joined hands and formed a new group named Lashkar-e-Umer or Jaish-e-Islami.

A United States television network quoting an American Government report said that the Al Qaeda had planned in May 2003 to fly “an explosive-laden general aviation aircraft into the US consulate in Karachi.”

The Government informs the National Assembly that 408 foreign students are still studying in various seminaries in Pakistan.

June 22

Two Pakistani nationals belonging to the Hazara tribe of Quetta, Jumma Khan Hazara and Ashfaq Hussain, are stopped on their way while traveling on a vehicle from Kandahar to Kabul in Afghanistan, and subsequently killed by unidentified militants.

Unidentified assailants open fire on a police patrol party on Bannu-Miranshah Road, killing three police personnel, including one officer.

The Taliban in North Waziristan claims to have shot down a Pakistan Army helicopter that crashed on June 21, killing four soldiers. However, the Military spokesperson, Major General Shaukat Sultan, refutes the claim.

Support for the Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden has declined but remains relatively high in Pakistan, where many people regard Westerners as intolerant, cheap and dishonest, according to the results of a global poll released on June 22.

June 25

Militants in North Waziristan announce a month-long unilateral cease-fire to allow a tribal Jirga (council) to negotiate a peaceful settlement to the security problems in the volatile tribal agency.

The Chinese diplomatic mission in Pakistan has said that members of the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) are planning to abduct senior Chinese diplomats and consular officers in the country.

June 26

Six security force personnel are killed when a suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden car at Aisha checkpoint, 10 kilometers east of Miranshah in North Waziristan.

June 27

A Frontier Corps personnel, identified as Imran Shah, is killed and another injured in a landmine blast in the Dera Bugti district.

Pakistan states that it would deploy another 10,000 troops along the border with Afghanistan to control cross-border infiltration.

June 28

Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri stated that Taliban leader Mullah Omar “is most likely hiding inside Afghanistan. But, we will act if we are given actionable intelligence on his whereabouts.”

A senior US commander said that Taliban forces fighting US troops in Afghanistan have grown stronger and more sophisticated, and are directing operations from neighbouring Pakistan.

June 29

Three insurgents are killed and two others sustain injuries in a gun-battle with SFs in the Nal area of Kohlu district.

Afghan officials claim that they had captured two Pakistanis who were part of a 20-member team that entered southern Afghanistan to carry out suicide attacks.

June 30

The local Taliban stages the public execution of an alleged killer at Ipi, a town near Mir Ali in North Waziristan, the first of its kind in the region.

Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao clarifies that the Government would not deploy an additional 10,000 troops along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border to supplement the current 78,000-strong troop level.

July 2

Six paramilitary personnel are killed and seven others sustain injuries when their vehicle hit an improvised explosive device near an Afghan refugee camp in the Lower Dir district of NWFP.

The Punjab Assembly adopted a bill to make it compulsory for seminaries to register with the Government.

July 4

Unidentified gunmen shot dead Abdullah Samad Achakzai, general secretary of the Pashtoonkhwa Milli Awami Party, and his bodyguard in an ambush at Shella Bagh in the Qilla Abdullah district of Balochistan.

July 5

Security forces backed by helicopter gun-ships targeted hideouts of insurgents in the Sangsila area of the Dera Bugti district in Balochistan, killing at least 25 suspected insurgents.

Insurgents in Balochistan claim to have shot down a military helicopter.

July 7

Insurgents claim to have shot dead at least seven SF personnel in separate clashes in Balochistan.

July 8-9

At least 23 insurgents are killed in a series of strikes against their hideouts in the Sangsilla and Bamboore areas of the Dera Bugti district in Balochistan province.

July 13

The British Government declares the BLA as a terrorist organization. Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, while talking to the media in Islamabad, rules out general amnesty for “miscreants” in Balochistan.

July 14

Suspected insurgents claims to have killed at least 14 SF personnel in two separate incidents in the Dera Bugti district of Balochistan.

A suicide bomber kills a high profile Shia scholar and political leader, Allama Hasan Turabi along with his nephew near his residence in Abbas town in the Sindh province. Three policemen are wounded in the attack.

July 15

Insurgents claim to have killed at least nine soldiers in various parts of the Dera Bugti district in Balochistan.

July 22

A grand tribal jirga (council) led by Maulana Nek Zaman, National Assembly member from North Waziristan, negotiates a one-month extension to the cease-fire in North Waziristan between local militants and Government forces.

July 24

The North Waziristan administration has set free 25 tribesmen, who were arrested about a year ago for their suspected links with Taliban in Afghanistan and attacking security forces, after a grand tribal jirga met senior Government officials in Miranshah .The administration has so far released about 150 tribesmen since June 25 when local Taliban announced a unilateral cease-fire.

July 25

The US Government has reportedly handed over a fresh list of 21 “most wanted” persons to Pakistan and has asked the interior ministry to arrange for their extradition immediately so that they can be put on trial for their crimes against the US and its citizens.

July 26

Unidentified gunmen shot dead Wing Commander (retd.) Mian Maqbool Ahmed Rehbar, principal of the Mastung Cadet College, at his official residence in Mastung.

A spokesperson for the Bugti tribe told reporters via satellite phone from an undisclosed location in the Dera Bugti district that five security personnel have been killed and 14 others injured in separate incidents of landmine blasts by insurgents during the past four days.

July 27

A soldier is killed and three others sustain injuries when a remote-controlled bomb hit a military convoy at a spot between Bannu and Miranshah in North Waziristan.

This is the first such attack on the army since June 25 when local Taliban announced a unilateral truce.

July 30

Three soldiers, Mohammad Taslim, Ali Mohammad and Wali Bakhsh, are killed and three others sustain serious injuries when their vehicle hit a landmine at Kahan in the Kohlu district of Balochistan.

August 1

A US intelligence agency expert told a US court this week that Pakistan is still running a terrorist training camp at Balakot in the North West Frontier Province.

Eric Benn, a terrorism expert for Defence Intelligence Agency, told the district court in California that there was 70 per cent ‘probability’ the satellite images of a place near Balakot were that of a militant training camp.

August 3 Uzbek militants in North Waziristan announce that they would not comply with the unilateral cease-fire by the Taliban, saying that they had never consented to it. Local Taliban leader Gul Bahadar Ustad has reportedly sent a five-member Jirga (council), comprising senior militia commanders, to negotiate with the Uzbek militants, a tribal elder said. The tribal elder also claimed the local Taliban were in “complete control of all mujahideen, both local and foreign”, in the area and could forcibly stop them if necessary.
August 6

A suspected suicide bomber riding a bicycle is killed at Hub in the Balochistan province.

Urging Pakistan to intervene militarily to resolve the Kashmir issue, HM chief Syed Salahuddin asserts that no political solution is possible since India and the international community had "wasted the opportunity by not responding to Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's CBMs".

He claims India has realised that militancy could spread to other parts of the country if the Kashmir issue is not resolved soon. Pakistan has asked Iran to monitor the activities of the Indian consulate in the city of Zahidaan that, according to the Pakistani Government, is fermenting unrest in Balochistan.

August 7

Taliban militants abduct and later behead a pro-government tribal elder, Loi Khan, in the Miranshah region of North Waziristan.

A note found on the body said Khan has been killed as punishment for working as an “informer.” Insurgents claim to have killed nine security force personnel and injured 12 others following clashes at Dera Bugti in the Balochistan province. However, a Balochistan Government official calls the insurgents’ claims as “absolute nonsense”.

August 8 Interior Secretary Syed Kamal Shah said that the Government has decided to expel all foreign students staying in Pakistan without no-objection certificates from their own countries. He informs that 700 foreign students are studying in religious schools and universities in the country.
August 9

Suspected terrorists kill a tribal elder, Noor Muhammad, in South Waziristan for allegedly “spying” for the United States.

Hafiz Shafiqur Rehman, a member of the outlawed Sunni group LeJ, convicted of murdering a rival Shia cleric in 1997, is hanged at the Multan jail.

August 10

The Punjab Government puts LeT chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed under house arrest for one month at his house in Lahore, two days ahead of a public meeting he was scheduled to address in the city.

Police in NWFP are reported to have arrested a Turkman leader, Abdur Raheem, of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) comprising militants from the Central Asian Republics in North Waziristan.

August 11

Foreign Office spokesperson Tasnim Aslam said the foiling of the terror plot was the result of close cooperation between Pakistan, the United States and the United Kingdom.

She told the media that 24 people have been arrested in connection with the terror conspiracy and those arrested would be handed over to the UK for investigations.

Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao said Pakistan had arrested an Al Qaeda operative who had played a key role in the terror plot. “He is a British citizen of Pakistani origin.

He is an Al Qaeda operative with linkages in Afghanistan,” Sherpao told Reuters. He said the arrest of the man, identified as Rashid Rauf, had led to a wave of arrests in Britain that headed off the alleged plot to blow up as many as 10 aircraft flying from Britain to the US.

A UK-based Islamic charity organisation remitted a huge amount of money to three individuals in three different bank accounts at Mirpur in Azad Kashmir [Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK)], in December 2005 with the sole purpose of helping its recipients and their organisations carry out the aircraft bombing plan in the UK, sources told Daily Times. Suspected terrorists fired dozens of rockets at two military posts in South Waziristan on, but no injuries were reported.

August 12

Two people are killed in a bomb blast near Chaman in the Balochistan province, close to the Afghan border.

August 13

A 14-year old girl, identified as Parveen, is killed and another, Maqsooda, is wounded when a toy bomb exploded in the Gultary sector of Baltistan.

August 15

At least eight people, including three security force SF personnel, are killed and 19 others sustained injuries in nine explosions and armed clashes in different areas of the Balochistan province.

Security agencies arrest 29 Taliban suspects, including a local ‘commander’, during a raid on a private hospital in Quetta, capital of the Balochistan province.

A suspected Islamist terrorist, Mohammad Ashraf Qureshi, accused of training religious students to become suicide bombers is arrested along with two other men during a raid in Karachi.

The Foreign Office has denied as “absurd” reports in the media that Islamic charities had diverted money meant for earthquake relief to fund the alleged London terror plot. It also denies that Rashid Rauf, a key suspect arrested in Pakistan, had any connection with charities involved in earthquake relief.

August 16

Security forces recovered 2,000 handmade bombs, bullets and Kalashnikovs near Bhomboore in the Balochistan province.

The father of Maulana Masood Azhar, chief of the JeM, said that Rashid Rauf, identified by Pakistan as a key player in the failed plot to blow up transatlantic airliners in London, left the movement to join rivals more interested in Al Qaeda’s anti-Western message. He said that Rauf was a member of the JeM before he joined Al Qaeda.

President Pervez Musharraf said that no foreign militant will be allowed to use Pakistan’s territory for any terrorist activity or for training for such activities.

August 17

Three soldiers, Amjad Ali, Tasawar Hussain and Matloob Hussain are killed and seven others are injured when a vehicle carrying SF personnel hit a landmine in the Karmo Wadh area of Kohlu district.

Two personnel of the Frontier Corps, Kashmir Khan Afridi and Abdul Khaliq Afridi, are killed and five others injured when their vehicle hit a landmine in the Bhambhoor area of Dera Bugti district.

Ismail Hamza, an aide to the JeM leader Maulana Masood Azhar denies that a British national arrested in Pakistan in connection with the plot to blow up US-bound airliners had ever been a member of the group.

August 18

An intelligence agency has reportedly handed over six suspects, belonging to the proscribed JeM, to police in connection with the March 2, 2006-suicide attack outside the US consulate in Karachi.

August 21

Two suspected militants, Anwarul Haq and Usman Ghani, are arrested for their alleged involvement in a suicide attack on the US consulate on March 2 that killed US diplomat David Foy, his driver Iftikhar Ahmed, Rangers official Zafar and security guard Hasan Shehzad.

Police arrests two suspected members of the outlawed Sunni group LeJ in Bahawalpur. One of the arrested men is allegedly involved in a plot to assassinate President Pervez Musharraf.

August 22

Security agencies arrest six Al Qaeda suspects, including two foreigners from the Hayatabad locality in NWFP.

August 23

A Pakistan-born architect, Faheem Khalid Lodhi, accused of plotting a “jihad” or holy war bombing campaign in Australia and convicted of planning to blow up the electrical grid in Australia’s biggest city, Sydney is sentenced to 20 years in jail.

August 24

Two soldiers are killed and three others sustain injuries in an exchange of fire between insurgents from the Marri tribe and SFs in Kohlu in Balochistan.

16 people, including two girls, are wounded in two bomb blasts at Model Town close to a busy bus stand and headquarters of the Frontier Corps in Quetta.

The first-ever tribal Jirga (council) of its kind in the history of Dera Bugti in the Balochistan province held at the Jinnah Stadium unanimously announces to abandon the “Sardari system” (a feudal system) in the Bugti tribe.

Muslim clerics in the earthquake-affected PoK have told aid agencies to dismiss all local women employees or face violent protests.

A Pakistani man, Javed Iqbal, is due to appear in court in New York after being accused of providing a banned Hezbollah-linked television station to viewers in the city.

August 25

Four insurgents and two security force SF personnel are killed and an officer wounded as the SFs used helicopter gun-ships to launch another operation in parts of the Kohlu district in Balochistan province.

The Home and Tribal Affairs Department of Balochistan Government declares the two districts of the province, Dera Bugti and Chagai, as A-areas (In the B-areas the police do not operate).

Militants in the North Waziristan extends the cease-fire by another 15 days as Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, has joined efforts to help clear some obstacles to an agreement for restoring peace in the tribal region.

The Interior Ministry said that 134 incidents of terrorism had taken place in the country between December 2005 and April 19, 2006 in which 129 people had been killed and 354 injured.

August 26

Nawab Akbar Bugti, the leader of the Bugti tribe and President of the Jamhoori Watan and also the driving force behind the anti-Government rebellion in Balochistan, is killed in a massive military operation in the Bhambore Hills, an area between the cities of Kohlu and Dera Bugti in the Balochistan Province. As many as 21 army commandos and 37 insurgents are also killed in the same operation, which targeted 50 to 80 of Nawab Bugti’s closest family members and top commanders.

August 27

At least three persons are killed on as protests spread in the Balochistan province and Baloch-populated areas in Karachi after Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti’s death in a military operation on August 26.

Around 450 students of the Balochistan University, Bolan Medical College and Polytechnic Institute are arrested for violence while the four-party Baloch National Alliance and the Baloch Students Organisation has announced a 15-day mourning period for Nawab Bugti. The MMA will stage a countrywide strike on September 1.

The US Government has barred two relatives of Hamid Hayat, a Pakistani-American convicted in April 2006 of supporting terrorists by attending a Pakistani training camp, from returning to the country after a long stay in Pakistan.

August 28

Violent protests against the killing of Nawab Akbar Bugti continu across Balochistan province and in Karachi, with one death and dozens of injuries reported. Riots erupt in the Baloch-populated areas of Karachi in Sindh province, with violence also spilling over into other areas.

Police detain some 100 Baloch students, including Gulzar Baloch, general secretary of the Baloch Students Organisation, bringing the total detained in provincial capital Quetta to approximately 550.

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said that Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti was not the target in the military operation.

The Lahore High Court sets free LeT chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, terming his detention illegal.

Pakistan said that the UK had formally sought the extradition of Rashid Rauf, a key suspect in the alleged plot to blow up US-bound airliners.

August 29

At least five persons are killed in a bomb blast as violence continued in the Balochistan province for the third consecutive day after funeral prayers for the slain Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti. The blast in Hub, an industrial town close to the Sindh border, also wounded ten people.

Military regime spokesperson Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan said in Islamabad that there is no chance of retrieving the body of Nawab Akbar Bugti from the cave in which he died for four to five days. He said the bodies of three officers and four soldiers along with Rs 100 million and $96,000 cash, two satellite phones, documents, eight AK-47 rifles and some rockets is recovered from the rubble of the cave.

Six important Marri commanders and 2,000 militants surrendered to district authorities in Tadri, a town 140 kilometers from Kohlu in the Balochistan province.

Authorities detain Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, chief of the LeT, an hour after he was released following a court ruling that his detention was illegal. Saeed had been taken to jail and would be held for two months.

August 30

Unidentified persons decapitate two Afghans, identified as 45-year-old Noor Wali, a religious leader, and an Afghan refugee identified as Hak Nawaz, accused of spying for US and Afghan authorities in North Waziristan Agency. Their bodies are found in two villages near Miranshah.

Mobs protesting the killing of Nawab Akbar Bugti cut off the main highway connecting Quetta, capital of Balochistan province, to Karachi at four points and another heading west to Iran as the number of arrests in four days rose to nearly 700.

Baloch National Party chief Attaullah Mengal warns in a statement that the strikes would continue until the Government handed over Bugti’s body to his family.

August 31

The body of Jamhoori Watan Party chief Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti is retrieved from a cave in the Kohlu district of Balochistan province as efforts to recover the bodies of other tribesmen continued.

A high-level meeting chaired by Chief Minister Jam Muhammad Yousuf is informed that rioters had set ablaze or damaged 93 Government buildings, 87 shops, 31 houses, 28 banks and 37 vehicles over the past four days in various parts of the province, including capital Quetta.

Baloch leader Sardar Khair Baksh Marri describes the killing of Nawab Bugti as target killing. He said he fears for the life of his own son, Balach Marri, because the Government had the ‘mistaken notion’ that Marri was the epicentre of all anti-state and terrorist activities, and Balach Marri was an ‘icon of resistance’.

August 31

11 Pakistani and three Indian Shia pilgrims are abducted and subsequently killed by insurgents in the Anbar province of Iraq on August 31.

The police arrest four members of a banned religious outfit in Peshawar, capital of the NWFP, for providing shelter to foreign militants along with three hand-grenades and documents indicating their links with foreign militants.

September 1

Two paramilitary personnel are killed during clashes between protesters and police in Karachi. Several other people sustain injuries during the general strike observed by the combined opposition against the Government on various issues, particularly the killing of Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Bugti in Balochistan, Sindh, Islamabad and NWFP.

Over 100 people are arrested in the country, most of them in Balochistan, following clashes between the police and protesters.

Leader of the Baloch tribe, Nawab Akbar Bugti, killed on August 26 by security forces, is buried at his ancestral graveyard at Dera Bugti in Balochistan.

At least 13 militants, who were arrested earlier for attacks on SF personnel in North Waziristan, are released.

September 2

A homemade bomb explodes at a music market in the NWFP, injuring one civilian and damaging several shops. The music market was reportedly last attacked four months ago when pro-Taliban elements, who believe that business in music is against Islam, renamed it “dozakhi market”, meaning “place of devils”.

An anti-terrorism court in Peshawar sends the owners of four video shops arrested on August 31 to jail after charging them with selling CDs and cassettes containing anti-Shia speeches by leaders of the banned group SSP.

September 3

Six people are injured in a hand grenade attack on the Jail Road in Quetta, capital of the Balochistan province.

The Anjuman Ittehad Marri party has said that SFs have launched another operation in different areas of Kohlu district and many people have been killed. It claims that 70 families comprising 350 people were missing.

Pukhtoon militants who fought against the US-led invasion of Afghanistan have reportedly formed a new anti-Shia militant group. The new militant group is led by Mufti Ilyas and Hazrat Ali of Darra Adam Khel. The group has no links with any other militant groups, including the banned LeJ, and is active in Quetta, Karachi and other major cities in Pakistan. The group has established a supply line of weapons and ammunition between Darra Adam Khel and Karachi.

Troops vacate four checkpoints and two Government buildings at Miranshah in North Waziristan after local militants reached an understanding with the Government to restore peace.

September 4

Three members of the Masori clan of Bugti tribe die in an ambush that injured seven others in the Naseerabad district.

President Pervez Musharraf says that the Government had sealed six points through which arms and money were being sent into the Balochistan province.

The Army pulls out of several check-posts in North Waziristan ahead of the signing of the peace agreement between the local administration and militants.

Principal Officer of the US Consulate in Lahore, Bryan David Hunt, said that America is not in anyway involved in the incidents happening in Balochistan, while the killing of Nawab Akbar Bugti is an internal affair of the country and it is the responsibility of the Government to settle it the way it likes.

September 5

Taliban representative Azad Khan and North Waziristan chief administrator Fakhar-e-Alam signs the agreement in Miranshah, in the presence of army commander Major General Azhar Ali Shah, pledging not to launch cross-border attacks in Afghanistan and not to shelter foreign fighters. The agreement aims to end two years of violence in North Waziristan, where hundreds of people have died in clashes between security forces and Taliban militants. Under the agreement, the Taliban also agrees not to attack Government buildings or security forces, and not to conduct “target killings” of Government servants, tribal elders and journalists. In return, the Government agrees to stop air and ground operations; return all weapons and other material seized during operations; restore privileges of tribesmen; and remove all check-posts.

A member of the Bugti tribe, Ghulam Nabi, is killed in a landmine blast in the Sangsila area of Dera Bugti.

September 6

Suspected militants targeting a pro-government tribal elder, Fazal Mabood, near the Afghan border fired five rockets at his home at Kaga, a village in Bajur, missing him but killing a 12-year-old girl.

A wheel-jam and shutter-down strike is observed throughout Balochistan on the call of All Parties Conference in protest against the killing of Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Bugti, military operations in Kohlu and arrests of hundreds of political workers.

President Pervez Musharraf after talks with his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai in Kabul, said he is committed to crushing the Taliban, their Al Qaeda allies and “Talibanisation”.

The political authorities and militants exchange weapons and vehicles in North Waziristan as a part of implementation of the peace agreement signed on September 5. According to the agreement, both the parties will return each other’s arms and communication equipments snatched in the operations.

The political administration in North Waziristan removes the names of two militant commanders, Maulvi Sadiq Noor and Maulvi Abdul Khaliq, from the list of wanted men.

Military regime spokesperson Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan said that if Osama bin Laden is in Pakistan, he "would not be taken into custody as long as one is being like a peaceful citizen." However, the Foreign Office termed as ‘gross misreporting’ a statement attributed to Sultan.

September 7

President Pervez Musharraf publicly acknowledges that Al Qaeda and Taliban militants are crossing from Pakistan to launch attacks inside Afghanistan, stressing that such actions are neither Government- nor ISI- (Inter-Services Intelligence) sponsored.

US President George W Bush said in an interview that a peace deal between Pakistan and pro-Taliban militants does not give “safe haven” to terrorists who may be hiding on tribal lands near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

September 8

At least six people are killed and 17 others sustain injuries in a bomb blast in the Rakhni Bazaar area of Barkhan district in Balochistan province.

The NWFP Governor Ali Mohammad Jan Aurakzai has ruled out withdrawal of the army from North Waziristan, and said troops will remain along the Afghan border to check infiltration.

September 9 A bullet-riddled body of a civilian ‘accused of spying’ for US forces is found near Miramshah town in North Waziristan Agency.
September 10

Suspected Islamic militants kill a tribal elder, Malik Dalai, near Wana in South Waziristan.

At least 18 people are injured when a bomb exploded on the Prince Road in Quetta, capital of Balochistan province.

Power supply to 15 of the 29 districts of Balochistan, including capital Quetta, is disrupted after the insurgents blew up four pylons supporting two transmission lines in Mach.

September 12

President Pervez Musharraf blames the West for breeding terrorism in his country by bringing in thousands of Mujahideen to fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and then leaving Pakistan alone a decade later to face the armed warriors. Gen. Musharraf told the European Parliament’s foreign affairs committee in Brussels that Pakistan is not the intolerant, extremist country often portrayed by the West, and terrorism and extremism are not inherent in Pakistani society.

September 13

A Government official is abducted in North Waziristan, the first such incident in the region after a peace deal was signed with pro-Taliban militants on September 5.

September 15

The U.S. indicate that the agreement the Government signed with pro-Taliban tribal chiefs in North Waziristan on September 5 has the ‘potential to work’. The U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher endorses the deal as an effort to get tribal support to defeat terrorism.

September 17

A Taliban suicide bomber explodes a bomb-filled car near a convoy of Canadian troops at Kandahar in southern Afghanistan, killing a Pakistani national and injuring 11 other people, including, three soldiers with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force personnel.

September 18

President Pervez Musharraf tells the UN General Assembly that a resolution of the Kashmir issue is “within reach”, and expressed confidence that his meeting with the Indian prime minister in the Cuban capital Havana would help carry the peace process forward.

The president said that problems along the regions bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan are compounded by the continuing presence of over three million Afghan refugees, “some of them sympathetic to the Taliban”. He opines that old and new conflicts had spawned a deep sense of desperation and injustice across the Muslim world.

The Pakistan-based HM dismisses as meaningless an agreement to resume peace talks by India and Pakistan, adding, “The only declaration acceptable to the people of Kashmir is one which gives a timeframe for resolving the Kashmir issue.”

A British Pakistani, Omar Khyam, facing trial for allegedly plotting to blow up Houses of Parliament and other high-profile targets in Britain refuses to give further evidence claiming, that he fears for the safety of his family in Pakistan who have been contacted by that country's external intelligence agency, the ISI, after his testimony at Old Bailey last week.

September 20

Unidentified persons, riding a car, open fire on an official vehicle in Wana bazaar in South Waziristan, killing an official, identified as Gul Zada, and his two associates, Minal Khan and Khizrullah, and injuring two others.

SFs arrest 10 people from the Lawara Mandi area in North Waziristan after six US helicopter gun-ships intruded into the Pakistan airspace following clashes between the allied forces and Taliban across the border. After the September 5-peace accord between the Government and militants it is the first action by the SFs in the region.

Reports from Peshawar say that five bodies are brought from Afghanistan’s Paktika province to Miranshah, the administrative headquarters of North Waziristan. Official sources said that all the deceased, including a prominent militant commander Maulana Abdul Kalam, belonged to North Waziristan and that the tribesmen might have been killed in a gun-battle with the allied forces in Afghanistan.

The Pakistan-based HM offers a conditional cease-fire in the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir during Ramadan, which is set to begin next week. Ehsan Elahi, chief spokesman for the HM, said, “If the Indian government agrees to scale down troop presence, stop human rights violations and release all political prisoners, we will also consider a cease-fire in attacks against them during Ramadan.”

September 21

The former district president of the outlawed Shia group Tehreek-e-Jaferia Pakistan (TJP), Syed Bashir Hussain Bukhari, is shot dead by two assailants in the Muslim Bazaar of Sargodha in Punjab province.

Suspected militants shot dead an Afghan man in the Miranshah area of North Waziristan for allegedly spying for US forces in Afghanistan.

President Pervez Musharraf said in an interview that the United States threaten to bomb Pakistan “back to the stone age” in 2001 unless it cooperated in the US-led war on terror and that the threat came from former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.

Pakistan vows to not let foreign forces enter its territory a day after US President George W. Bush said he would order American military action inside this country if Osama bin Laden was found to be hiding here.

A grand Jirga (council) of Baloch Sardars (chieftains) decides to move the International Court of Justice over what they said the violation of an agreement between the former Kalat state, the then British Raj and Pakistan at the time of the partition.

The Supreme Court drop charges against a man, Nazir Ahmad, accused of attempting to assassinate President Pervez Musharraf but detained him for three months on suspicion of having links with the al Qaeda.

September 23

A bomb attached to a bicycle exploded at a cattle market in the Dera Ghazi Khan city of Punjab province, killing at least two people, including a 14-year old boy, and wounding 20 others. Saad Ullah, an area police chief, said: “It is clearly an act of terrorism meant to kill ordinary people and spread panic.”

Five suspected militants, including two foreigners and local militant ‘commander’ Khanan, are injured in a bomb explosion in the Shakai valley of South Waziristan. Locals said that Khanan has launched a campaign to expel Tajik and Uzbek nationals from South Waziristan, but he could not succeed.

Over 1,000 trained Kashmiri militants are “currently stranded” in three camps of the HM in the Hazara region of NWFP, reports the Pakistan-based Herald magazine.

French newspaper L’Est Republicain quotes a French secret service report dated September 21 as saying that Saudi Arabia is convinced that al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden died of typhoid in Pakistan during August 2006.

September 25

A full bench of the Supreme Court upheld the death sentence of 12 people found guilty of involvement in two assassination attempts on President Pervez Musharraf in 2003.

Foreign Office spokesperson Tasnim Aslam dismisses reports about the presence of Taliban leadership in Pakistan, saying, “Taliban are in Afghanistan and the insurgency is deep inside Afghanistan, far away from Pakistan’s borders.” She rejects reports that the agreement between the tribal and local authorities in Waziristan was at the behest of the fugitive Taliban chief Mullah Omar.

September 26

President Pervez Musharraf rejects NATO security assessments that Taliban’s headquarters was in Quetta, capital of Balochistan province, adding that Pakistan do not have financial resources to support the Taliban who, he said, are being financed by poppy growers.

September 27

Unidentified gunmen kill two militants and injure three others near Wana in South Waziristan. An intelligence official said the attack may have been linked with rivalry between pro-Taliban tribal militants, Hanan, and a group of Uzbek fighters. The attacked militants are believed to be of Hanan group, who had started a campaign to oust Uzbek militants living in the Shakai mountain valley region north of Wana.

The local Taliban have set up their office in Miranshah, the headquarters of North Waziristan, for ‘curbing crimes and anti-social activities’ in the area. The office has reportedly been set up on the premises of the main bus stand in Miranshah. The Taliban Shura has appointed a committee to run the office.

Military authorities return Kalashnikovs, books and other material belonging to a seminary run by Afghan Jihadi ‘commander’ Maulana Jalaluddin Haqqani. Under the peace accord, the Government and militants would return weapons and other equipment snatched during army operations.

September 28

An Afghan national, identified as Malang Khan, is shot dead in the Mirali area of North Waziristan on suspicion of spying for the US.

October 1

A 12-year-old boy is killed in a landmine blast in the Sibi district of Balochistan province.

President Pervez Musharraf told US television that the ISI has played no role in propping up the renegade Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, adding that he is investigating possible support to the Taliban from retired ISI officials.

October 2

Two persons are killed while seven others sustain injuries in a sectarian clash between the Ahl-e-Sunnat and Shia sects over a controversial shrine in the Orakzai tribal area of NWFP.

Over 35 commanders of the Marri tribe running fugitive camps surrender before authorities in the Kohlu district of Balochistan province.

October 3

Three SF personnel are killed and two others sustain injuries when their convoy was ambushed by unidentified people who used heavy weapons, including rockets in the Bhombor area of Kohlu district in Balochistan province.

100 Marri tribesmen have surrendered with their weapons and renounced insurgent activities.

The Jama’at-ud-Da’awa, political wing of the LeT, have issued a fatwa (edict) calling upon Muslims to kill Pope Benedict XVI for his September 12, 2006-speech, where he quoted a remark reportedly made by a Byzantine emperor in 1391 during a conversation with an unnamed Persian scholar, which gave the impression that the Byzantine emperor tended to identify Islam with violence.

Foreign students studying in around 400 seminaries have yet to get documents from their countries certifying that their Governments have no objection to them studying in Pakistan, and this may lead to their expulsion from the country.

October 4

A mysterious blast takes place in Rawalpindi Golf Club, adjacent to Army House, the residence of President Pervez Musharraf. No casualties and no major damage to property are reported.

The Afghan intelligence service said that would-be suicide bombers detain in Afghanistan claims they have been brainwashed and equipped by Arab, Chechen and Uzbek militants in Pakistan. Illiterate people, those with a poor religious education or from deprived backgrounds, are being “brainwashed” in Pakistani training camps across the border and sent to Afghanistan. The bombers trained in Shamshatoo, an Afghan refugee camp near Peshawar, and at another camp near Data Khel in North Waziristan tribal region. The claims are from 17 attackers who were arrested in the past month before they had the chance to strike.

Interior Minister Aftab Ahmad Sherpao said that registration of 95 per cent of 12,000 seminaries in the country has been completed and the purpose of the registration is to remove misconceptions that terrorism or extremism was being promoted in seminaries. He also said there are about 1,200 foreigners studying in various seminaries but 500 to 600 of them have gone back to their countries.

October 5

Security agencies discover and defuse two rockets aimed at the Presidency, Parliament and Cabinet Block, less than 12 hours after a powerful blast in Rawalpindi’s Ayub National Park. President Pervez Musharraf was not inside the Presidency when these rockets were found.

October 6

At least 20 people were killed in continued exchange of mortar fire between Shias and Sunnis fighting that erupted on October 2 over control of the Mian Anwar shrine in the Kalay area of Lower Orakzai Agency in NWFP.

October 7

Unidentified gunmen shot and killed a Shia tribal elder, identified as Syed Mqbool Shah, in the town of Tank in NWFP.

Police arrests over 45 suspected Taliban operatives during a series of raids in the Balochistan provincial capital Quetta and on a hotel in the nearby town of Kuchlak near the Afghan border.

October 10

Pakistan and the NATO agree to enhance cooperation to defeat the Taliban and terrorism.

An anti-terrorism court in Karachi indicts two activists of the al Qaeda in the US diplomat killing case.

October 11

President Pervez Musharraf said that security agencies have detained militants behind two foiled rocket attacks in the capital Islamabad last week and that he may have been the target.

October 16

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said that Mullah Omar, the fugitive Taliban leader, is hiding in Quetta, capital of Balochistan province.

October 17

Justice Muhammad Akhtar Shabbir of the Lahore High Court orders that Jama'at-ud-Da'awa (formerly Lashkar-e-Toiba) chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed be released immediately, rejecting the Government's charges against him.

October 18

Police at Mianwali in the Punjab province arrests three alleged terrorists, identified as Noor Muhammad, Abdul Waheed and Rao Saifullah, belonging to the defunct Sunni group SSP. They wanted to carry out an attack on a Shia shrine in the Sheikhupura district.

October 19

Baz Khan Marri, a Marri militant commander, arrested in an injured condition on October 18 from Kohlu district, dies at the hospital.

Two soldiers are killed and three others are wounded when militants attacked a check post in South Waziristan.

October 20

A powerful bomb explodes in a crowded market on near the headquarters of a paramilitary force at Peshawar in the North West Frontier Province killing nine people and injuring more than 30.

Ahle Tashai, a Shia organisation, said that Taliban cadres from Afghanistan and Arab nationals were "involved" in the recent sectarian clashes between. Around 50 people were killed in violence before a ceasefire could be brokered between the two sides.

October 21

President General Pervez Musharraf said that the West would be "brought to its knees" without the support of Pakistan and its intelligence services in the "war on terror".

October 22

A Shia cleric, identified as Syed Asif Ali Shah, is shot dead by unidentified armed assailants in a suspected sectarian killing at Bahawalpur in the Punjab province.

The Taliban imposes their brand of penalties for various acts, which they deemed to be offences and levied 'taxes' on businesses at Miranshah in North Waziristan. They also proclaimed a vast area around the town to be their 'area of operations' and 'banned' all sorts of criminal activities around the North Waziristan headquarters.

October 23

Afghan militants are planning to launch deadly attacks on civilians in Europe in revenge for the 2001 invasion by United States-led forces, said Mullah Mohammed Amin, a Taliban commander. He added that resurgent militants have built up stockpiles of weapons and are bent on vengeance against "the foreign invaders" and that the Taliban, overthrown by the invasion, now wants to export terror to the West.

The son of a retired Pakistani Brigadier is among three al Qaeda-linked terrorists arrested for masterminding attempted rocket attacks near the president's house and parliament.

October 28

A bicycle bomb explodes outside a police barracks in Quetta, capital of Balochistan province, killing at least one person and injuring 12.

NATO's top military commander says that the movement of militants from Pakistan into Afghanistan has increased since Islamabad signed a deal with tribal elders in September 2006.

October 29

Pakistan has reportedly received billions of dollars in reimbursement for its support of US-led counter-terrorism operations, while Congress has appropriated billions of dollars to reimburse Pakistan for its support of counter-terrorism operations.

October 31

82 people, including 12 teenagers, are killed during an air strike that targeted a Madrassa (seminary) at Damadola in the Bajaur tribal region. Pakistan's military spokesperson, Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, said those killed in the attack are all militants and denied that there had been any collateral damage.

October 31

Two Frontier Corps soldiers, Javed Afzal and Mohammad Saeed, are killed and another sustained injuries when a landmine exploded in the Pirkoh area of Dera Bugti district in Balochistan.

Two activists of the banned Sunni group SSP, Shahnawaz alias Shani and Shaukat alias Javed alias Chand, are sentenced to death by a Karachi court for killing six employees of the Pakistan Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO) during an attack on their vehicle in October 2003.

The Madrassa in Bajaur Agency destroyed in an aerial strike on October 30, killing around 82 people, was an isolated terrorist training facility frequently visited by top al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, The News reported. The facility, known as Maulvi Liaquat's Madrassa, was actually used for imparting training to new recruits with the second and third-tier leadership of al-Qaeda, by Dr al-Zawahiri, head of al-Qaeda's operation in Afghanistan's Kunar province Abu Obaida al-Misri and Abu Farrah Libbi.

November 1

Pro-Taliban militants loyal to Maulana Faqir Muhammad have reportedly "executed" a tribesman, identified as Jan Muhammad Buneri, for his suspected role in the October 30-air strikes on a seminary in Bajaur Agency.

Riots broke out in the Mohmand Agency as protesters assembled in the Mohammad Gat area, the entry point to Bajaur Agency, for a demonstration against the air strikes.

The White House supported Pakistan's claim that the October 30-aerial strikes on a seminary in Bajaur Agency intended to kill al Qaeda militants.

November 2

Two police officers and a civilian are killed in Quetta, capital of Balochistan, in a bomb blast that took place on Shahra-e-Gulastan in front of the Inspector General’s office.

November 3

The local Taliban in North Waziristan beheads an Islamic cleric, Maulvi Salahuddin, for allegedly spying for the United States in Afghanistan. A note attached to the body recovered from Makeen area warns: “The Maulvi was an American spy and all of you will face this (fate) if you follow him.”

The Taliban in Wana addresses a local Jirga (council) on new rules to punish collaborators and criminals. They inform that they would first warn a collaborator’s family of the consequences of working for the Americans. But if the suspect continues spying, he would be executed.

A senior investigator has said that a less-known al Qaeda affiliate, the Islamic Jihad Group (IJG), based at Mirali in North Waziristan, gave the go-ahead for the attempted rocket attacks in and around the federal capital Islamabad in October 2006 before the Pakistani masterminds executed it in early October. All those involved in the failed plot have since been arrested, including its mastermind, Khalil, who has been described as a young man in his mid-twenties who was previously affiliated with the banned LeT.

November 4

Suspected militants shot dead Malik Wali Zar, a member of a Government-sponsored committee working on expulsions of foreign pro-Taliban militants at Inzar village in South Waziristan.

Unidentified gunmen shot dead three tribesmen in the Dangeen village area of North Waziristan.

A Shura (council) of militant groups in North and South Waziristan has decided to launch a campaign against lawlessness and appoint a committee to collect donations to finance Mujahideen activities.

November 6

An anti-terrorism court in Lahore convicts BLA activist Jan Maqbool of carrying out two blasts in the city in 2006 and sentenced him to death on 11 counts. The blasts had claimed nine lives.

Intelligence agencies have reportedly been informed of a potential terrorist strike on the country’s stock exchanges by the end of November.

November 7

President Pervez Musharraf said that the Government would tackle militancy with force, but would also pursue peace through political means.

Several thousand protesters, Pakistani Pashtuns and some Afghan Pashtun refugees rallies in a town near the Afghan border, accusing Pakistan of meddling in Afghanistan’s affairs by providing sanctuary to Taliban militants.

November 8

A suicide bomber blew himself up at an army-training centre at Dargai in the NWFP, killing 42 and injuring 39 recruits of the Punjab Regiment Centre (PRC) and their instructor. According to an eyewitness, two unidentified men approached a group of 80 soldiers exercising in the open field and one of them set off a bomb tied to his body. The bombing, reportedly the biggest terrorist attack on the military since Pakistan joined the US-led war on terrorism, occurred at around 8:30am in a ground opposite the PRC fort in Kurkai the area. Security agencies suspect the Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM), a group close to the Taliban, could be behind the suicide attack.

November 9

Five young girls are killed when a toy-shaped cluster bomb they were playing with exploded in Pakistan occupied Kashmir. The girls, aged between three and six, found a small bomb at Kel village near the LoC.

November 10

A tribal peace committee member, Malik Khan Jan, and his three friends are killed when a bomb hit their vehicle at Shakai in South Waziristan.

November 11

Abdullah Mujahid, a founding member of the Jama'at-ud-Da'awa (earlier known as LeT) and close associate of its chief Hafiz Saeed, is killed in the Taj Bagh area of Lahore. Mujahid's family and lawyer lodged a complaint of murder during robbery with the police, while LeT activists claims that the incident was an act of terrorism.

November 13

At least two persons, including an eight-year-old girl, are killed and 15 others sustain injuries when a powerful bomb exploded in the Smmungli area of Quetta, capital of Balochistan.

A soldier is killed and another wounded during an encounter between security forces and unidentified militants in the Kahan area of Kohlu district. Soon after the attack, the security forces opened retaliatory firing, killing two militants.

The NWFP Assembly passes a revised version of the controversial Hasba bill to establish a Taliban-style department under a cleric entrusted with the task of enforcing Islamic morality. The bill is a revised version of one that was ruled unconstitutional in 2005 by the Supreme Court, following a challenge by President Pervez Musharraf under Article 186 of the 1973 Constitution.

November 14

Major (retd) Tanvir Hussain Syed, Parliamentary Defence Secretary, discloses that he was once a member of the banned LeT, saying, "I was a member of the LT and I admit it on the floor of this house."

Security forces in eastern Afghanistan detain two Pakistani nationals with home-made bombs from a road heading towards the Pakistani border in the Marko area. They were traveling to Nangarhar from Peshawar.

According to a recent report of the Asian Development Bank Pakistan received approximately $1.1 billion in 2005 from the United States for the logistical support it provided for counter-terrorism operations, including its own military operation mainly in Waziristan and other tribal areas along the Durand Line.

November 16

At least 22 people are killed and several others injured in a sectarian clash between the Lashkar-e-Islami and the Ansaarul Islam in the Bara area of Khyber Agency in NWFP. An Ansaarul Islam group led by Gul Maidan was heading towards Aka Khel near Bara when supporters of the Lashkar-e-Islami challenged them, fearing that the former wanted to take possession of Bara.

A shutter-down strike and a black-day are observed in Quetta and others parts of Balochistan on a call of the National Party to protest against the visit of President Pervez Musharraf to Gwadar and Turbat. More than 100 political activists are arrested for "forcing people to close their shops" in Quetta.

November 17

A suicide bomber, identified as Nadeem Khan, kills himself and injures two police personnel when he targeted a police van at the Bara intersection on the Ring Road in Peshawar. "It was a suicide bombing," said a senior police official.

At least 20 people are injured when an explosive device, weighing one kilogram, planted in a dustbin at a bus stand on Ferozpur Road in Lahore explodes, a day before the arrival of President Pervez Musharraf in the city. The Lahore police initially claimed that two people were killed and another 13 injured in the explosion, but retracted the statement later.

President Pervez Musharraf said in Gwadar that at least 60 terrorist camps have been raided and destroyed in Balochistan.

November 19

A cleric is killed on suspicion of spying for the United States and his body is found near Razmak in North Waziristan. Sources said a note found on the body read that Maulvi Mohammad Hashim was a `US spy' and that he had been punished in accordance with the Shariat.

Pakistan and Britain have concluded an agreement to strengthen co-operation to combat terrorism. The agreement, which also includes co-operation to combat narcotics, illegal immigration and organised transnational crime, will be operationalised through a working group set up under Pakistan's Ministry of the Interior and British Home Office. The first meeting of the working group will be held in January 2007.

November 20 The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has directed all banks and development financial institutions to freeze the accounts of two granddaughters of the slain Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti because of their alleged links with the BLA. According to an SBP notification, the Interior Ministry has declared that the daughters of Rehan Bugti, Mrs. Zamour Domki and Mrs. Zawazboh, have links with the BLA.
November 21 Police arrests 47 suspected Taliban operatives from various areas in Quetta, capital of Balochistan.
November 22 The Sariab police have registered a treason case against Nawabzada Jamil Bugti, son of slain Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Bugti, for speaking against the army and the government in his press conference in October 2006.
November 23 The Sindh High Court set aside the conviction of nine activists of the banned HuMA and acquitted them in the Macedonian consulate explosion case. They are prosecuted for killing three persons - Hameed Masih, Muhammad Asif and Ghazala Parveen - at midnight on December 5, 2002. The victims were at the consulate's office in Karachi at the time.

November 27

The Taliban have released two Pakistani journalists who were detained for several days in southern Afghanistan after entering Taliban-controlled territory without permission, a purported spokesman for the Taliban said on November 26. Syed Saleem Shahzad, from The Star newspaper in Karachi, and Qamar Yousafzai, a reporter with various newspapers in Quetta, were last heard from in Afghanistan's southern Kandahar province on November 19. They were released on November 26-morning after being held for entering Taliban controlled territory without permission, Mohammed Hanif, a purported Taliban spokesman, said in a Pashto language e-mail sent to The Associated Press.

Paramilitary forces in North Waziristan killed four suspected terrorists. BBC Urdu quoted security force officials as saying that some anti-state elements had attacked a paramilitary base near Mir Ali. The paramilitary forces retaliated, killing the four militants on the spot.

Suspected pro-Taliban militants killed Maulana Gul Thaheem, a cleric in South Waziristan, accusing him of spying for US forces operating in Afghanistan.

November 28

Balochistan National Party (BNP-Mengal) president Sardar Akhtar Mengal has been detained in a farmhouse in Sakran, which has been declared a sub-jail.

November 30

A 29-year old Pakistani, with an expired student visa, and a US citizen have been charged in Texas with conspiring to train with firearms to fight with the Taliban against coalition forces in the Middle East and providing $350 to support terrorist groups. The detained Pakistani was identified as Adnan Babar Mirza, while the 33-year old American has been identified as Kobie Diallo Williams a.k.a. Abdul Kabeer.

A main pipeline supplying gas to the Sui purification plant from the field was blown up. Suspected insurgents reportedly blew up the pipeline from at least five points.

Police arrested seven suspected Taliban activists during a raid on a house in the Pakhtunabad area of Quetta, capital of Balochistan.

December 1

A bomb attached to a motorcycle exploded in the Defence Officers Colony area of Peshawar in North West Frontier Province, killing one person.

December 2

A seventeen-year-old boy, Mohammad Younus Baloch, was killed and three other people were injured when a bomb exploded at Nushki in Balochistan.

December 3

A police official was killed and another wounded when a foreigner, believed to be an Uzbek national, detonated explosives tied around his body when the police tried to search him in the Domail area of Bannu in North West Frontier Province.

Intelligence agencies have reportedly unearthed a plan by banned militant groups to hijack helicopters used by courier services and welfare organisations to carry out terrorist acts in Pakistan.

December 5

Federal prosecutors said a Pakistani living in New York wired money and tried to send foot soldiers to a Sikh militant organisation aimed at violently forcing India's government into letting the group form its own state. Khalid Awan knew the $25,000 that two Sikh businessmen gave him to transfer to a Khalistan Commando Force leader in 2001 "was for bad things and that innocent people would die," federal prosecutor Lawrence Ferazani said. Ferazani spoke in Brooklyn federal court during opening arguments of Awan's trial on counts of providing material support or resources to terrorists, conspiracy to provide material support or resources to terrorists and money laundering to promote terrorism.

Pakistan is prepared to give up its claim on Kashmir, the demand for plebiscite in the region and on implementation of UN Resolutions if both countries agree on the four-point solution, according to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. In an interview to the New Delhi-based NDTV, Gen. Musharraf said self-governance or autonomy did not mean independence and Pakistan is against independence for Kashmir. He said Pakistan was prepared to give up its claim to Kashmir if India and Pakistan agree on the four-point solution.

December 8

Unidentified assailants threw a hand grenade inside the house of a civilian at Panjgur district in Balochistan, killing a 10 year-old young boy and injuring four others, including two women.

December 10

At least four persons were killed and 25 others wounded and four houses demolished in an armed clash between the rival Lashkar-e-Islami and Ansarul Islam groups at Khyber Agency in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

A man was killed and his mother suffered injuries in a landmine explosion near Punjabi Dob village in the Jaffarabad district of Balochistan.

December 11

Pakistan said that it had never claimed Kashmir as an integral part of its territory, that its legal position was based on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions, and that it wanted a settlement that would be acceptable to itself, to India and to the people of Kashmir. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tasnim Aslam made these remarks when asked to comment on President Pervez Musharraf's statements to the New Delhi-based television channel NDTV that Pakistan would give up its claim on Kashmir if India showed similar flexibility.

December 11

The US said it is concerned over "safe havens" being established by Islamic militants in Pakistan’s tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, and acknowledged the situation on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border was a "mess".

December 12

Afghan President Hamid Karzai accuses Pakistan of being "the boss" of the Taliban and said that resolving difficulties with Pakistan would put an end to terrorism in Afghanistan.

December 13

An anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi drops charges against a British man of Pakistani origin suspected of being a key figure in an alleged plot to blow up trans-Atlantic airliners. 25-year old Rashid Rauf had been arrested in August 2006 and officials had claimed that his detention had led to the uncovering of the conspiracy and that he was linked to the al Qaeda.

December 15

The Supreme Court stops the NWFP Government from enacting the Hasba bill. The bill provides for the appointment of an anti-vice ombudsman enjoying sweeping powers to protect Islamic values and "forbid persons, agencies and authorities working under the administrative control of the government to act against Shariah."

John D. Negraponte, Director of the US National Intelligence, is reported to have blamed Pakistan for the dangerous situation now prevailing in the Pakistan-Afghanistan tribal belt.

December 16

Three brothers, suspected to be linked with the al Qaeda, are arrested at Darra Adam Khel in the NWFP. They are believed to be involved in the Dargai suicide blast on November 8, 2006, in which 42 soldiers were killed and 39 others wounded.

Militants belonging to banned Jihadi outfits are planning suicide attacks on army installations in Pakistan and foreign troops in Afghanistan in revenge for the October 31-aerial strike on a Madrassa (seminary) in Bajaur. Maulvi Inayatur Rehman and Maulana Faqir Mohammad of the TNSM have pledged before their supporters to target VIPs in Pakistan and US and NATO forces in Afghanistan. British and U.S. diplomats and nationals are also possible targets of the militants. Leaders of the LeJ, HuM and Khudam-ul-Islam have also pledged to cooperate with the TNSM and called for a joint strategy. The training and enrolment of suicide bombers is the sole responsibility of the LeJ, reports indicate.

The UJC has decided to step up its political and diplomatic activities to push for Kashmir’s accession to Pakistan, after what it perceives is Pakistan’s shifting stance on Kashmir.

The al Qaeda is training a 12-member team of westerners in Pakistan for a special mission, including plotting attacks on return to their home countries.

December 18

Maulana Fazlur Rehman, secretary general of the MMA, has warned President Pervez Musharraf that he will need the help of religious parties for peace in the Pakistan-Afghan border region, and so should avoid alienating religious leaders.

December 19

A former commander of the insurgents, Bangan Khan, who was a close associate of slain tribal chief Nawab Akbar Bugti before surrendering to the government in July 2006, dies during a landmine blast in the Ghot Habib Rai area of Dera Bugti district, while his four associates are injured. BLA claims responsibility for the attack.

December 20

14 civilians are injured when a bomb went off at a cycle stand near the Quetta police station in Balochistan.

The United States federal jury convicts Khalid Awan, a Pakistani national living in New York for links with the KCF. Awan is said to have provided money and financial services to the KCF.

December 21

An internal assessment made by the UNICEF has accused Pakistani authorities of preventing aid groups from helping more than 80,000 people - many of them acutely malnourished children - who were displaced by fighting in Balochistan.

The Government seeks intervention of the UN to help avert nutrition crisis among 84,000 displaced persons in Balochistan.

Seminaries reject a Government offer to give them financial assistance under the Madrassa Reforms Project and refused to fill forms seeking details about the annual breakdown of the decrees issued by each of them.

An editorial titled ‘Al Qaeda’s last sanctuary’ published by Washington Post reports, "Action must be taken against Taliban and Al Qaeda forces in Pakistan before spring, when another major offensive against US and NATO forces can be expected unless the enemy bases and supply lines are disrupted."

President Pervez Musharraf states militancy was an Afghan problem whose solution lies in Afghanistan. This solution should be similar to the solution Pakistan was trying it in its tribal areas through political and administrative measures.

December 23

A Khasadar (tribal police personnel), identified as Akal Noor, is killed and two others are injured when unidentified gunmen opened fire at a Government official’s vehicle in North Waziristan.

December 25

The U.S. has asked Pakistan to launch fresh military operations in its tribal regions against suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban militants.

December 26

One person is killed and two are injured when a powerful time bomb, planted in a car, exploded in a parking area outside the Peshawar airport in the NWFP.

The Balochistan National Party (Mengal) chief, Sardar Akhtar Mengal, is sent to jail till January 5 by an ATC in the army personnel hostage-taking case.

Pakistan has decided to put in place landmines and a fence along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border as a last resort to stop cross-border movement of terrorists, said Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao. Interior Secretary Syed Kamal Shah said that fencing and land mining would not be done at the whole 27,000kms border but at the most critical patches from where the movement of the Taliban could be possible.

December 27

A text of the statement issued by the US State Department quoting Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher said that the Taliban have established a command and control structure in the tribal areas and are using their "sanctuary" for regrouping.

December 28

Afghan President Hamid Karzai urges Pakistan to do more to stop Taliban and other militants sheltering and training on its territory rather than separating families with an impractical border fence and landmines. Karzai said the plan announced by Pakistan this week would do nothing to stop cross-border incursions by militants and would merely divide families already split by the British-drawn frontier.

December 31

The intelligence agencies have unearthed a plan of the outlawed Sunni group LeJ to target prominent Shia leaders and scholars and carry out suicide attacks on Shia worship places in various parts of the country. In a report to the Interior Ministry, the agencies said that the LeJ has reactivated its activists for attacks on Shias and their mosques and Imambargahs. The report indicates that LeJ activists could target Shia leaders and scholars in Lahore, Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Multan, Khanewal, Layya, Bhakkar, Jhang, Sargodha, Rahimyar Khan, Karachi, Dera Ismail Khan, Bannu, Kohat, Parachinar, Hangu, Hyderabad, Nawabshah, Mirpur Khas and Quetta.

 

 

 

 

 
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