PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Gunmen stormed a mountaineering base camp in northern Pakistan on Sunday and shot dead nine foreign trekkers and a Pakistani guide as they rested during an arduous climb up one of the world's tallest peaks, police said.
The night-time raid - which killed five Ukrainians, three Chinese and a Russian - was among the worst attacks on foreigners in Pakistan in a decade and underscored the growing reach of militants in a highland region once considered secure.
Police said a 15-strong team of attackers wearing uniforms used by
a local paramilitary force arrived at about 1 a.m. at a group of
tents and ramshackle huts used by hikers scaling the flanks of the
snow-covered 8,125-metre Nanga Parbat peak.
As the killing spree began, the intruders shot dead a Pakistani guard
with the tourists and held other workers at gunpoint, a senior
official from the northern Gilgit-Baltistan province said. A Chinese
climber managed to escape.
“The gunmen held the staff hostage and then started killing
foreign tourists and made their escape,” the official said.
It was the first time foreign tourists had been attacked in the
province, where the convergence of the Hindu Kush, Karakoram and
Himalayan ranges has created a stunning landscape explored by only a
trickle of the most intrepid mountaineers.
Pakistan’s Taliban movement and a smaller militant group both claimed
responsibility.
The shootings, which followed several deadly bombings in different
parts of Pakistan in the past week, pose a fresh challenge for the
new government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who is battling
accusations that his calls for dialogue with insurgents amount to
appeasing violent extremists.
The deaths of the Chinese are a particular blow for Pakistan, which
hosted Chinese Premier Li Keqiang last month in a bid to boost trade
ties with the Asian giant via their shared border in
Gilgit-Baltistan.
Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan told parliament he had
sacked Gilgit-Baltistan’s police chief and another senior provincial
official, an unusual step in Pakistan where senior officials are
rarely held accountable for lapses in security.
The move did little to silence questions from critics who asked
how gunmen could have slipped past security forces at check points
meant to scrutinise visitors to the sensitive mountain region
bordering the disputed territory of Kashmir.
CONFLICTING CLAIMS
There were conflicting claims of responsibility for the attack. A
Pakistani militant group known as Jundullah, with a track record of
attacks in the Gilgit-Baltistan province, was the first to say it was
behind the raid.
“These foreigners are our enemies and we proudly claim
responsibility for killing them, and will continue such attacks in
the future,” Jundullah spokesman Ahmed Marwat told Reuters by
telephone.
The same group has claimed responsibility for a series of attacks in
northern Pakistan in recent years, mostly on members of Pakistan’s
Shi’ite Muslim minority, known as Shias.
Later, Pakistan’s Taliban movement, which has its centre of gravity
closer to the Afghan border, said it had shot the trekkers in
retaliation for a U.S. drone strike in May that killed its second in
command, Wali-ur-Rehman.
“We wanted to seek revenge for the killing of our leader in the
drone attack,” said Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan. “Our
attacks on foreigners will continue to protest drone strikes.”
It was not immediately possible to reconcile the competing claims.
Jundullah and the much larger Pakistani Taliban are among loosely
aligned militant groups that frequently share personnel, tactics and
agendas. Claims for specific incidents are often hard to verify.
Recent attacks by Pakistani militant groups have tended to focus
on security forces and religious minorities, particularly Shi’ites,
but foreigners have also been targets in the past.
In 2002, 11 French engineers and technicians working on the
construction of submarines for the Pakistan navy were killed along
with three Pakistanis in a suicide bombing outside a hotel in the
port city of Karachi. In 2009, gunmen attacked the visiting Sri
Lankan cricket team in the eastern city of Lahore.
The latest killings followed an attack last weekend in the
southwestern city of Quetta, when a suicide bomber attacked a bus
carrying women students before gunmen stormed the hospital treating
survivors. More than 20 people were killed.
