Six civilian barbers were shot dead in Mir Ali, a town in North Waziristan near the border with Afghanistan. According to local sources and news agencies, the bodies of the victims were found during the early hours of Tuesday, January 2.
Pakistani police authorities told reporters that the victims, who worked in several barber shops in the local market, were abducted a day earlier, and their bodies were discovered on Tuesday in a nearby area. According to the police, an investigation into the matter and efforts were underway to apprehend the perpetrators of the incident who remain unidentified and at large.
Mir Ali area served as a base for the Tahreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) for years until the Pakistani security forces cleared the area of insurgents in 2014. Last year, the militant group imposed a ban on the trimming of beards and Western-style haircuts in the area. It is not clear whether the incident was linked to the enforcement of the ban.
This incident follows another case in the region, where unidentified gunmen killed five laborers and injured a watchman in the Wana area. The victims were reportedly employed in the construction of a police station. The assailants shot them dead while they were asleep in their tent at night and subsequently fled the scene.
Pakistan has been grappling with a surge in terrorist incidents in recent years, as the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other militant groups have intensified their violence against the country’s security forces and civilians. The TTP, also known as the Pakistani Taliban, a globally designated terrorist group, has been a strong ally of the ruling Taliban in Afghanistan. together, they conducted joint insurgent attacks against the United States-led Western forces until their withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021.
According to a recent report by the Islamabad-based Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) released on Sunday, December 31, Pakistan witnessed 1,524 violence-related fatalities and 1,463 injuries from 789 terror attacks and counter-terror operations, including nearly 1,000 fatalities among civilians and security forces personnel in 2023. The report identified the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and southwestern Baluchistan provinces, both bordering Afghanistan, as epicenters for the majority of these terror attacks and casualties. According to the report, 2023 was the deadliest year for Pakistani police and military forces in a decade, in which more than 500 security personnel were killed in bombings and ambushes.
Pakistan says that TTP and other militants have increasingly and freely carried cross-border terrorist attacks from sanctuaries in Afghanistan. Recently, the country renewed its demand for the Taliban authorities to “ensure effective border management” on their side of the shared 2,600-kilometer frontier between the two countries. The Pakistani Army’s media wing (ISPR) said in a statement on December 31 that the Taliban “is expected to fulfill its obligations and deny the use of Afghan soil by terrorists for perpetrating acts of terrorism against Pakistan.”
Pakistan is expecting a visit by Mullah Sherin Akhund, a senior Taliban figure and governor of Kandahar province, to Islamabad early this month. The purpose is to address the TTP issue and ease bilateral tensions related to the outlawed terror group. Earlier, the Kabul regime invited Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehman, a Pakistani politician and leader of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, to Kabul to facilitate dialogue with Islamabad.
