Balochistan: Timeline (Terrorist Activities) -2002

Media reports on January 3 indicated that a team of Army interrogators have found strong evidence of the presence of Al Qaeda terrorists in Pakistan in the light of the revelations made by a majority of the 139 Arab detainees at the Central Prison in Kohat. Consequently, the Interior Ministry is expected to launch a crackdown against the Al Qaeda cadres reportedly hiding in tribal territory in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), Baluchistan and some settled areas of the country in the light of the preliminary reports compiled by the investigators. Read less...

The Pakistan Customs and the Makran Scouts, on January 2, seized a large cache of narcotics and illegal arms and ammunition from the Chaghai and Gajjo areas near the border with Iran. However, no arrests were made in connection with the seizures. Read less...

Three suspected terrorists were killed and a police personnel of the Anti-Terrorist Force (ATF) injured in an encounter in Kalat district, Quetta, on January 6. According to official sources, a joint team of Quetta and Kalat police raided a house to arrest members of a terrorist group allegedly sponsored by Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), India’s external intelligence agency. In the ensuing encounter, three suspected terrorists were killed and one police personnel injured. Police sources added that a large cache of arms and ammunition was also recovered by the ATF from the encounter site. Read less...

According to media reports, police in Quetta on January 14 arrested Abdul Ghafoor Haideri, General Secretary of the Jamaat-Ulema-e-Islam (JuI-Fazlur Rahman faction). Haideri is also the Chairman of the Pakistan Afghanistan Defence Council (PADC). Separately, Chief of the Jamaat-e-Islam (JeI) Baluchistan, Maulana Abdul Haq Baloch, along with five others were arrested in Quetta on the same day. Read less...

The Baluchistan government has announced that it will monitor the activities of 160 madrassas (religious seminaries) in Baluchistan to ascertain whether they are involved in any illegal activities. The heads of all religious schools have reportedly assured the government that they would not allow any illegal activity in their institutions and also extend full co-operation to the government, a government spokesman said. Read less...

According to media reports, two senior officials of the ousted Taliban regime were arrested in two separate raids conducted in Kuchlak, near Quetta on January 30. Official sources indicated that they received information that two senior officials of the erstwhile Taliban regime - Chief Justice of Afghan Supreme Court Maulvi Noor Ahmed and Senior Deputy Foreign Minister Maulvi Abdul Rahman - had been hiding in two separate houses in Kuchlak for a long period. They have been shifted to unknown places for interrogation, these sources added. Read less...