Iran on Wednesday summoned the British ambassador to Tehran after London extradited an Iranian citizen, wanted on suspicion of circumventing sanctions on Tehran, to the United States.
The Iranian foreign ministry said it had “conveyed to the British ambassador Iran’s strong protest” against the “illegal arrest of the Iranian citizen and his extradition to the United States”.
The US Justice Department announced on Tuesday that Saeid Haji Agha Mousaei, 53, had been extradited by Britain to appear before a court in Chicago.
The United States has accused him of transporting to Iran advanced US technology with “military applications”.
Washington has imposed crippling sanctions on Iran since 2018, after withdrawing from an agreement secured three years earlier that placed curbs on Tehran’s nuclear programme.
Talks aimed at reviving the 2015 agreement failed in the summer of 2022.
Saudi Arabia, a key player in Yemen’s nearly decade-long war, on Wednesday welcomed a deal between Yemen’s government and the Iran-backed Huthi rebels to halt tit-for-tat banking sanctions.
The deal was announced on Tuesday by Hans Grundberg, the United Nations’ envoy to Yemen, in a bid to end the warring parties’ battle for control over the country’s financial institutions.
Saudi Arabia, which has spearheaded a coalition fighting the Huthi rebels since 2015, said it “welcomed” the agreement.
A Saudi foreign ministry statement expressed “support for efforts aimed at achieving peace and security for Yemen,” and said it hopes the latest deal “will contribute to reaching a comprehensive political solution” to the conflict.
Grundberg had credited the kingdom with “significant efforts” to broker the deal, cautioning however that it did not guarantee progress to end the war in the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country.
The rebels and the government had in December committed to a UN-led roadmap to end the war, agreeing to work towards “the resumption of an inclusive political process”.
But Huthi attacks on Red Sea shipping since November and subsequent US and British retaliation have put peace talks on hold.
Tuesday’s announcement came as Yemen reeled from a deadly strike on the Huthi-held harbour of Hodeida, which Israel said it carried out in retaliation for the first fatal Huthi strike on Tel Aviv last week.
According to analysts, the agreement followed threats from the Yemeni rebels to attack Saudi Arabia.
“Threatened with new attacks, Saudi Arabia has forced the Yemeni government to abandon efforts to cut off the Huthi group… from the international banking system,” said the Sanaa Centre for Strategic Studies think tank.
Meanwhile, thousands of demonstrators angry over Israel’s military onslaught in Gaza marched on the US Capitol as Netanyahu asked lawmakers for steady support as his forces fight Hamas.
Washington has become increasingly alarmed by the humanitarian toll of Israel’s nine-month military offensive in the narrow coastal territory, and protests in Israel and the United States have been ratcheting up pressure on Netanyahu.
The prime minister hit back at his critics in a speech at the US Capitol, accusing Tehran of funding and promoting US-based anti-Israel protest — and called Gaza peace activists “Iran’s useful idiots”.
“America and Israel today can forge a security alliance in the Middle East to counter the growing Iranian threat,” he told lawmakers as demonstrators burned his effigy in the streets beyond the historic Capitol complex.
“All countries that are in peace with Israel, and all those countries who will make peace with Israel, should be invited to join this alliance.”
Iran, he said, was the “axis of terror” behind almost all sectarian killing in the Middle East. He argued that the United States and Israel “must stand together” against Tehran and its proxies.
“Our enemies are your enemies. Our fight is your fight. And our victory will be your victory,” Netanyahu said to a standing ovation in the House chamber.
The Israeli PM called on Washington to fast-track military aid to his country to “dramatically expedite an end to the war in Gaza and help prevent a broader war in the Middle East”.
But his call for support sparked a backlash from Democrats angry that there was little of substance in his speech about securing peace.
Influential former House speaker Nancy Pelosi called it “by far the worst presentation of any foreign dignitary” invited to speak before Congress.
Meanwhile, thousands of demonstrators marched on the US Capitol. Inside the House of Representatives — one-half of the main Capitol building — six protesters were arrested before Netanyahu began.
A group of protesters burned Netanyahu in effigy, along with American flags — a raucous end to a mostly peaceful march that also drew families, children and the elderly, as well as concerned citizens from thousands of miles away.
Crowds carrying Palestinian flags and signs ranging from left-wing slogans to Bible verses gathered near the Capitol calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and the arrest of Netanyahu, as prosecutors seek a warrant for him at the International Criminal Court.
“Seek peace and pursue it,” read one sign, quoting the Bible, while others were styled as criminal “wanted” signs, with photos of Netanyahu in place of a mugshot.
At a rally before the march, Palestinian and Jewish organisers stood on a stage and denounced both the US and the Israeli government for “genocide”, calling for a “citizen’s arrest” of Netanyahu.
Karameh Kuemmerle, of the organisation Doctors Against Genocide, told AFP that she and her medical colleagues were “horrified by the destruction of the health system in Gaza”.
“We are here to show our opposition to having the criminal Netanyahu come to our capital and being greeted by the politicians who sent him weapons to kill children in Gaza,” said the doctor, who travelled to Washington from Boston.
Ahead of Netanyahu’s speech, security was reportedly increased at the Capitol, much of which was closed to the public on Wednesday, according to political news outlet The Hill.
Scuffles with police broke out as officers, who at times deployed pepper spray, kept protesters away from the seat of the US Congress.
Elsewhere, occasional shoving matches erupted between protesters and police, who made a series of arrests, mostly toward the end of the march, outside Union Station, blocks away from the Capitol.
It was there that a group of demonstrators took down three American flags flying outside the train station and set them on fire, drawing loud cheers. Netanyahu was burned in effigy, and red, black and green Palestinian flags were raised in place of the Stars and Stripes.
Protesters vented about the offensive and Washington’s support for it. “The hypocrisy of our politicians today has gone beyond any limits,” Mo, a 58-year-old protester, told AFP.
Elsewhere, a group of congressional staffers staged a walkout, calling for a ceasefire in the name of their constituents.
Israel has recently intensified its attacks on Gaza and Netanyahu has insisted that only piling on military pressure can free the hostages and defeat Hamas.
More than 39,100 Palestinians, also mostly civilians, have been killed in the Gaza Strip since fighting broke out, according to data provided by the enclave’s health ministry.
The Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 resulted in the death of 1,197 people in Israel, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Out of 251 people taken hostage that day, 114 are still being held inside the Gaza Strip, including 42 who the military says are dead.
Americans are deeply divided over Israel’s actions in Gaza as the death toll climbs, and the demonstration outside the Capitol swelled to thousands ahead of Netanyahu’s appearance.
Wednesday’s address made Israel’s longest-serving premier the first foreign leader to address a joint meeting of Congress four times — pulling ahead of Britain’s Winston Churchill.
But he has lost backing among dozens of liberal lawmakers, and some 68 Democrats — including some of the most senior figures in Congress — said they would not attend.
Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian-American lawmaker, waved signs from the floor calling Netanyahu a “war criminal” and accusing him of genocide.
The Israeli leader’s visit came in the wake of a gunman targeting Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, and President Joe Biden bowing out of the election and endorsing his deputy, Kamala Harris.
Netanyahu singled out both Biden and Trump for praise for their efforts towards Middle East peace.
Biden and Harris are both set to meet Netanyahu separately on Thursday, but Republicans nevertheless criticised Harris for skipping Wednesday’s address.
Vice presidents typically preside over such occasions, and Senate leadership hopeful John Cornyn was one of a number of Republicans who called her no-show “disgraceful”. J.D. Vance, the Republican senator who wants to replace her as vice president, was not there either.
Netanyahu will also meet Trump — with whose administration he had a much less fraught relationship than Biden’s — in Florida on Friday.
Keir Starmer faced his first House of Commons grilling as UK prime minister on Wednesday, after suspending seven of his own Labour MPs for rebelling over a controversial welfare policy.
Starmer suspended the Labour rebels late Tuesday after they backed a motion demanding the removal of the contentious two-child limit on benefits introduced by the previous Conservative government.
Their votes supporting ending the cap — introduced in 2015 and which restricts payments to the first two children born to most families — is an early test of Starmer’s authority.
The new UK leader has warned there is “no silver bullet” to ending child poverty but acknowledged the “passion” of MPs who oppose maintaining the policy.
“The last Labour government lifted millions of children out of poverty, something we are very, very proud of,” Starmer said at his first Prime Minister’s Questions as UK leader, referring to ex-premier Gordon Brown who left office in 2010.
“And this government will approach the question with the same vigour with our new taskforce. Already we’ve taken steps,” he added, referring to breakfast clubs in schools and abolishing no-fault evictions for tenants.
Starmer’s decision to suspend the whip from the group of left-wingers, which included former finance spokesman John McDonnell, was seen as a show of ruthlessness from his new administration.
The Labour leader took power just weeks ago after his party, in opposition for 14 years, won a landslide in the July 4 general election.
The victory followed a four-year struggle since he became party leader to shift Labour back to the political centre ground from the hard-left regime of former leader Jeremy Corbyn.
The party in 2019 experienced its worst election result in nearly a century under Corbyn.
Despite the question on the two-child cap rebellion, Starmer enjoyed a largely amicable first Prime Minister’s Questions session, with his defeated opponent at the election Rishi Sunak lobbing a series of soft-ball questions at his successor.
“I’m glad in our exchanges so far we have maintained a cross-party consensus on important matters of foreign policy and in that spirit today, I wanted to focus our exchange on Ukraine and national security,” Sunak said.
Late Tuesday, MPs voted 363 to 103 to reject a Scottish National Party (SNP) amendment to scrap the two-child benefit cap, giving the government a majority of 260.
However, in addition to the seven who voted with the amendment, more than 40 Labour lawmakers recorded no vote, highlighting the level of unease within the centre-left party at the measure.
The vote tried to force a change to the government’s legislative agenda for the coming months, which it laid out in last week’s King’s Speech.
Kim Johnson, a Labour MP for Liverpool, said she had voted with the government “for unity” but warned “the campaign will continue”.
The SNP’s Westminster leader Stephen Flynn said Labour had “failed its first major test in government” by choosing not to “deliver meaningful change from years of Tory misrule”.
Defending the suspensions, Starmer’s political spokesperson told reporters that defying the government on a King’s Speech was “a serious matter”.
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan reiterated its call for the interim government in Afghanistan to take steps against terrorist groups holed up on its soil, stressing that such militant outfits pose a threat to the neighbouring countries including Pakistan.
“Terrorism emanating out of Afghanistan is a concern not only for Pakistan but other neighbouring countries like China, Iran, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan as well,” Ambassador Asif Durrani, Pakistan’s Special Representative on Afghanistan said, addressing a roundtable discussion on the “Pak-Afghan Relations: Challenges and Opportunities” at the Institute of Regional Studies (IRS) on Tuesday.
“Pakistan desires peace and stability in Afghanistan,” a statement quoted him as saying.
Ambassador Durrani’s remarks came as Pakistan has witnessed a surge in terrorist attacks, especially in KP and Balochistan, since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021.
A day earlier, the Pakistan Army killed three terrorists while they were trying to infiltrate the Pak-Afghan border in the Dir district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Moreover, two terrorist attacks took place last week, one in DI Khan and the other in Bannu. Two soldiers and five civilians were martyred in DI Khan while eight other soldiers were martyred while trying to foil a terrorist infiltration into the Bannu Cantonment in the wee hours of July 15.
At the roundtable moot, Ambassador Durrani said that Pakistan sought socioeconomic and political conditions in Afghanistan that would facilitate the return of over three million Afghan refugees currently residing in Pakistan.
In a major development earlier this month, Pakistan extended the stay of legally residing Afghan refugees in the country by another year, according to an official statement issued on July 10.
The federal cabinet approved the extension in the validity of Proof of Registration (POR) cards until 30th June next year for 1.45 million legal Afghan refugees and those whose POR cards had expired last month.
Last year, when the country witnessed a surge in terror-related incidents, the then-caretaker government in October decided to repatriate illegal refugees including undocumented Afghans residing in the country.
Ever since the government commenced the repatriation campaign last year, more than 500,000 undocumented Afghans have gone back from Pakistan so far, according to UN figures.
Continuing his call for repatriation of Afghan refugees in today’s discussion, the career diplomat urged the international community, especially the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) to come up with strategies for the dignified return of Afghan refugees to their homeland.
Ambassador Durrani also noted that the Afghan interim administration’s efforts for poppy eradication were acknowledged by the stakeholders concerned at the UN Doha meeting that concluded earlier this month.
The special representative underscored the need to remove obstacles to the trade between Pakistan and Afghanistan as well as the transit of Pakistani goods to Central Asia through Afghanistan.
Durrani also called for expediting regional connectivity projects like the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project and the CASA-1000 power transmission line from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The ambassador urged the government of Pakistan to keep up its crackdown on smuggling from Afghanistan.
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Navy has assumed the charge of Combined Task Force 150 (CTF-150) for the 13th time at an impressive change of command ceremony held at Headquarters US Naval Forces Central Command Headquarters in Bahrain.
Commodore Asim Sohail Malik of the Pakistan Navy took over the command from Capt Mathews of the Royal Canadian Navy, the Pakistan Navy said on Tuesday.
The multinational coalition of navies, CTF 150 is one of the five task forces operating within the ambit of Combined Maritime Forces (CMF), with a mission to promote maritime security to counter illicit activities at sea.
“Addressing the audience, the incoming Commander CTF-150 Commodore Malik assured that his team is fully geared up to efficiently shoulder this prestigious responsibility to contribute towards Maritime Security and Stability in the region,” the statement read.
The commodore also lauded the outgoing commander of the task force, Capt Mathews of the Royal Canadian Navy, and his team for their staunch commitment and commendable services to achieve the set objectives of CTF-150.
Commodore Malik underlined that CTF-150’s area of responsibility consisted of some of the world’s most challenging and important international waters.
He assured that his team will strive to further strengthen the efforts of this multinational task force to provide robust security in this vital maritime region.
The CTF commander also highlighted that the Pakistan Navy was committed to working with coalition navies to ensure peace and stability within the Area of Responsibility.
“Pakistan Navy has the distinction of commanding CTF-150 twelve times previously. This being the 13th Command, is a manifestation of the trust and respect reposed in the Pakistan Navy by the coalition partners,” the navy stated.
The change of command ceremony was attended by Pakistani Ambassador to Bahrain Saqib Rauf, Honourary Consul of Canada in Bahrain Hatim Zubi, Commander Combined Maritime Forces (CMF) Vice Admiral George M Wikoff, Commander Royal Bahrain Naval Force Rear Admiral Ahmed Al Binali besides representatives of several other navies operating with CMF.
Donald Trump will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week at his Florida estate, the Republican ex-president announced Tuesday.
Netanyahu arrived in Washington on Monday for a multi-day visit, during which he is scheduled to address a joint session of Congress and meet separately with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
The Israeli prime minister’s visit comes at a time of US political upheaval, with Biden dropping out of the presidential race and endorsing Harris to be his last-minute Democratic replacement.
Meanwhile, Trump, who is once again the Republican White House candidate, narrowly survived an assassination attempt just over a week ago.
An initial social media post by Trump said the meeting would be on Wednesday at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida — but it was quickly updated to Thursday, and then minutes later to Friday.
“At the request of Bibi Netanyahu, we have switched this meeting to Friday, July 26th,” Trump said.
Netanyahu is scheduled to address Congress on Wednesday and meet with Biden on Thursday afternoon.
An aide to Harris said she will meet with Netanyahu this week, but a date has not yet been announced.
They added that, due to a prior scheduled event, Harris will be unable to attend Netanyahu’s address to Congress — as vice presidents normally do.
Several Democrats have said they will not attend Netanyahu’s speech in protest over Israel’s conduct in the Gaza war.
Washington has been increasingly critical of the mounting toll on civilians from more than nine months of onslaught in the narrow coastal territory, while protests in Israel by families of hostages taken by Hamas are also causing headaches for Netanyahu at home.
The Israeli premier’s visit comes at a time of political upheaval in the United States, with a gunman targeting Republican candidate Donald Trump, and President Joe Biden bowing out of the 2024 race for the White House and endorsing his deputy, Kamala Harris.
Prior to departing Israel on Monday, Netanyahu said he would “seek to anchor the bipartisan support that is so important for Israel” in his address to Congress.
“I will tell my friends on both sides of the aisle that regardless who the American people choose as their next president, Israel remains America’s indispensable and strong ally in the Middle East,” he said in a statement.
Biden will meet Netanyahu on Thursday, while Harris will hold separate talks with the Israeli leader. She will not, however, attend his speech due to previously scheduled travel.
Netanyahu will also meet with Trump — with whose administration he had a much less fraught relationship than Biden’s — in Florida on Friday.
When he speaks on Wednesday, Israel’s longest-serving premier will become the first foreign leader to address a joint meeting of the two chambers four times — pulling ahead of Britain’s Winston Churchill.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said Tuesday that with Israel facing attacks from various Iranian proxies, “it has never been more important than it is right now to stand with our closest ally in the Middle East.”
But Netanyahu has lost backing among some liberal lawmakers, including independent Senator Bernie Sanders, who said Tuesday that “Netanyahu should not be welcomed into the US Congress.
“On the contrary, his policies in Gaza and the West Bank and his refusal to support a two-state solution should be roundly condemned,” Sanders wrote in a social media post, adding that he would not be attending.
Dick Durban, the number-two Democrat in the Senate, said he would also not be attending.
“I will stand by Israel, but I will not stand and cheer its current prime minister,” he said in a statement.
Highlighting opposition to the Israeli leader, at least 200 people protested against Netanyahu’s speech at a building in the US Capitol complex on Tuesday.
Capitol police said they carried out arrests and had cleared the area.
Israel has recently intensified its attacks on Gaza, killing more than 39,000 Palestinians, according to the enclave’s health ministry. Netanyahu has insisted that only piling on military pressure can free the hostages and defeat Hamas, which launched a shock attack on October 7 that resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
Hamas fighters also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom are still in Gaza, including 44 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 39,090 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
Publicly, Biden has voiced strong support for Israel. But he expressed concern over an offensive on the southern Gaza city of Rafah and suspended a shipment of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel over fears that they would be used in populated areas.
Despite the tensions, the United States has defended Israeli interests while taking a key role in mediation efforts, and the countries’ military relationship remains strong, officials say.
But Council on Foreign Relations Middle East specialist Steven Cook said that “never before has the atmosphere been so fraught.”
“There is clearly tension in the relationship, especially between the White House and the Israeli prime minister,” Cook said.
Ex-shadow chancellor John McDonnell was among the Labour MPs who voted for an SNP motion calling for an end to the policy, which prevents almost all parents from claiming Universal Credit or child tax credit for more than two children.
Mr McDonnell backed the SNP motion alongside Richard Burgon, Ian Byrne, Rebecca Long-Bailey, Imran Hussain, Apsana Begum and Zarah Sultana.
MPs rejected the SNP amendment by 363 votes to 103, in the first major test of the new Labour government’s authority.
Losing the whip means the MPs are suspended from the parliamentary party and will now sit as independent MPs.
Nearly all of the rebels were allies of the former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who now sits as an independent MP and put his name to the SNP motion.
In a statement on social media, Ms Sultana said she would “always stand up for the most vulnerable in our society”, adding that scrapping the cap would “lift 33,000 children out of poverty”.
Mr Burgon said he was “disappointed” by the decision to suspend him, explaining that “many struggling families” in his Leeds East constituency had raised the cap with him.
Ms Begum said she had voted against the cap because it had “contributed to rising and deepening levels of child poverty and food insecurity for many East End families”.
Mr Byrne, meanwhile, said the “best way” to help his Liverpool West Derby constituents living in poverty was to scrap the cap.
Before the vote, Mr McDonnell said: “I don’t like voting for other parties’ amendments, but I’m following Keir Starmer’s example as he said put country before party.”
The decision to remove the whip is an early show of force from the new government.
This is their first rebellion. Even though it is a small one, Labour whips are trying to send a message to MPs that dissent will not be tolerated in votes.
However, there are many more Labour MPs who are opposed to the two-child benefit cap.
Many hope the party will make a decision in the coming months to scrap it.
A government source said Labour’s policy on the two-child benefit cap had been agreed going into the election – and the manifesto commitments made by Labour were clear.
The government has said it is not prepared to make “unfunded promises” by abolishing the cap.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer previously said there was “no silver bullet” to end child poverty but acknowledged the “passion” of Labour MPs on the issue.
The rebellion marks another moment of pressure from Labour politicians on the government to scrap the cap.
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar and Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham have also backed calls for a change.
“The evidence is plain that it really does cause harm,” Mr Burnham told BBC Newsnight on Tuesday.
But he also called for party unity and said the government should be given “time and space” to come up with a plan to reduce poverty.
The government had received a “terrible economic inheritance”, he added.
Kim Johnson and Rosie Duffield were among 19 Labour MPs to sign another amendment calling for an end to the cap – which was ultimately not put to a vote.
Several prominent critics of the cap, including Ian Lavery and Nadia Whittome who both signed rebel amendments, abstained on the vote.
Labour veteran and Mother of the House Dianne Abbott did not take part in the vote due to “personal reasons” but in a statement said she was “horrified” MPs had been suspended “when removing the cap is supposed to be party policy”.
Emma Lewell-Buck, Labour MP for South Shields, who put her name to a rebel amendment, said she did had not voted against the government because “none of the votes taking place tonight would have resulted in scrapping the cap”.
In a social media post she said: “There will be an Autumn Budget soon and I know myself and other colleagues will be working constructively with the Government to make scrapping the cap part of it.”
Despite the rebellion, Sir Keir easily saw off the first major test of his government – passing the King’s Speech.
Separately Labour defeated an attempt by the Conservatives to insert an amendment to the King’s Speech promoting Tory policies on defence spending, illegal migration and cutting inflation by 384 votes to 117.
A Lib Dem-tabled amendment which sought to commit the government to focus on crises in the health and social care system, sewage dumping and electoral reform was defeated by 382 votes to 85 – despite receiving support from Reform UK, the Green Party and parties from Wales and Northern Ireland.
Opposition parties customarily try to amend the King’s Speech to include their priorities for the next parliament, though they almost never succeed.
Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall said the government could not tackle the “dire inheritance” from the Conservatives overnight.
However, she said Labour was “determined to make a huge difference” on tackling childhood hardship.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank has estimated that removing it would eventually cost the government £3.4bn a year, roughly 3% of the total budget for working-age benefits.
On Monday, Ms Johnson, who has led Labour calls for the policy to be scrapped, said the government should set out a “clear timetable” for doing this.
“It’s not a question of whether we can afford vital policies to alleviate child poverty, such as lifting the two-child cap, it’s a question of whether we can afford not to,” she said.
“This punitive policy needs to be consigned to the dustbin of history where it belongs.”
Ahead of the vote SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn said removing the cap was the “bare minimum required to tackle child poverty – and to begin to deliver the change that people in Scotland were promised”.
RAWALPINDI: Security forces have eliminated three terrorists, thwarting their attempt to infiltrate Pakistan via the Afghanistan border in District Dir of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said in a statement on Monday.
“On the night between July 21 and 22, 2024, the movement of three terrorists, trying to infiltrate the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, was detected by security forces in District Dir,” said the military’s media wing.
It said that the infiltrators were surrounded, effectively engaged and after an intense fire exchange, all three terrorists were “sent to hell”.
The military’s media wing stated, “Pakistan has consistently been asking interim Afghan government to ensure effective border management on their side of the border.”
“The interim Afghan government is expected to fulfil its obligations and deny the use of Afghan soil by terrorists for perpetuating acts of terrorism against Pakistan.
“Security forces of Pakistan were determined and remain committed to securing its borders and eliminating the menace of terrorism from the country,” it added.
The country has been witnessing a rise in terrorist attacks, especially in KP and Balochistan, during recent months. The last terrorist attack came last week when two soldiers and five civilians were martyred in DI Khan.
This was the second terrorist attack in a period of 24 hours as eight other soldiers were martyred while trying to foil a terrorist infiltration into Bannu Cantonment in the wee hours of July 15.
Islamabad has time and again called on the Afghan Taliban administration in Kabul to prevent its soil from being used by banned militant outfits for terrorist attacks against Pakistan.
Last month, the government approved the launching of operation “Azm-e-Istehkam”, a renewed national anti-terror drive, in light of the growing menace of militancy.
The country, during the second quarter of 2024 witnessed 380 violence-linked fatalities and 220 injuries among civilians, security personnel, and outlaws, resulting from as many as 240 incidents of terror attacks and counter-terror operations, said a Security Studies (CRSS) Annual Security report.
This includes 236 fatalities among civilians and security forces personnel, the report said.
KP and Balochistan, both of which share borders with neighbouring Afghanistan, have faced the brunt of the terrorist attacks and reported nearly 92% of all fatalities and 87% of attacks — wherein the former suffered 67% and the latter 25% of all fatalities in Q2, 2024.
