Gunmen storms Pakistani college and kills 7 academics as area faces a wave of militant assaults

Gunmen stormed a faculty in Pakistan’s risky northwest on Thursday, killing seven academics and gunning down one other trainer from the college in a separate assault. Earlier within the day, a shootout with militants elsewhere within the area killed six Pakistani troopers.

The violence underscores the challenges the federal government of Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif is going through amid a surge in militant assaults throughout the nation in latest months.

In Kurram, a district within the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province that borders Afghanistan, a gaggle of gunmen stormed a authorities college the place college students had been taking exams. The seven killed academics had been members of Pakistan’s minority Shiite neighborhood, which is often focused by militants.

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Another trainer from the identical college, a Sunni Muslim, was gunned down on the highway in a separate assault earlier within the day in Kurram, in accordance with native police official Abbas Ali.

No one instantly claimed accountability for the assaults and Ali mentioned it was not clear in the event that they had been linked.

A map reveals Pakistan with its capital, Islamabad, and the Kashmir area. Pakistan is going through a latest surge in militant assaults. (AP Photo)

“We are wanting into all elements, and up to now we don’t know who killed the academics,” he mentioned. The prime minister condemned the assaults on academics and ordered a probe into the killings.

Earlier on Thursday, six troopers had been killed in a shootout in North Waziristan, one other district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The navy offered no particulars on the shootout however mentioned that three militants had been additionally killed.

The area is a former stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban — the outlawed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, because the group can also be identified — and likewise different militants. TTP is a separate group however allied with the Afghan Taliban.

The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021 has emboldened the TTP, which has stepped up assaults throughout Pakistan, primarily focusing on safety forces. The navy in latest weeks has additionally carried out a number of raids on militant hideouts within the northwest, killing and arresting dozens of insurgents.

Separately from the surge in militant assaults, Sharif’s cash-strapped authorities can also be struggling to revive a bailout package deal from the International Monetary Fund and recuperate from final yr’s huge flooding that killed tons of and precipitated $30 billion in damages.