Pakistan: four female aid workers killed as tension mounts in former Taliban stronghold

Violence increases in remote Pakistan province of Waziristan with string of attacks on security forces

A Pakistani army soldier stands guard on a border terminal in Ghulam Khan, a town in North Waziristan, on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, on January 27, 2019. AFP

The shooting of four female development workers in Waziristan, a border district of Pakistan, fuelled concern that militants are regrouping in the area.

The victims, all of whom were killed in the attack, were ambushed by two gunmen in their vehicle in the village of Epi in Mir Ali, a town in North Waziristan district.

The region on Pakistan's north-west border with Afghanistan was at the centre of a decade-long insurgency led by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), often referred to as the Pakistani Taliban, to overthrow the government and install Sharia. The TTP oppose women's education and employment outside the home.

Officials said the four women were vocational trainers from a technical college in Bannu who were helping teach local women to make handicrafts so they can earn a livelihood from their homes.

The district police officer named them as Naheed Bibi, Irshad Bibi, Ayesha Bibi and Javeria Bibi. Their driver was hurt, but a fifth woman escaped the attackers because she was in a house, police said.

The United Nations' children's body, Unicef, which operates in the area, condemned a “senseless attack on women and aid workers”.

The attackers escaped into nearby mountains and are being hunted by police. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but it followed a series of assaults on security forces that raise fears militants once expelled from the area are returning.

Pakistan's human rights commission said after the killings that “the re-emergence of terror groups in the area is a matter of grave concern”.

“It is the responsibility of the authorities to protect the lives and property of citizens at all costs,” the statement said.

North Waziristan became a notorious haven for Islamist militants after the 9/11 attacks and the site of regular military operations to weed out terrorist groups. The region was rolled into Pakistan's political mainstream three years ago, but while security has improved, it remains largely under military control and residents complain of government neglect.

A series of bloody military operations drove the TTP out of North Waziristan from 2014 and violence in the country declined sharply as the movement fractured and was pushed into Afghanistan.

Pakistan's army retains a firm grip in the border districts where the TTP once thrived. Yet there have also been reports of militants returning from their Afghan hideouts to launch attacks on security forces.

Four soldiers were shot dead in a February 11 attack on a security post in Makeen, South Waziristan, and another soldier was killed in North Waziristan on January 15.

Pakistan's military said late last month that it had killed five members of the TTP in North Waziristan, including two senior members of different factions within the group.

Pakistan's army in the past accused India and Afghanistan of aiding the TTP and is close to completing a border fence that it says will curb attacks.

Local officials expressed mounting concern over the attacks. “Where is the state? The wave of indiscriminate killings continues unabated in our region with no end in sight to the ongoing violence,” said Mohsin Dawar, a member of the national assembly for North Waziristan.

Mohammad Amir Rana, director of the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies think tank, said the attacks were worrying, but as yet there did not appear to have been a major shift to an increase in violence.

The TTP last year reconciled with two splinter groups as it tried to rebuild its network. Analysts at the time said the reunion with Jamat-ul-Ahrar and Hizb-ul-Ahrar was a significant success for TTP leader Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud and could give the movement greater reach to carry out attacks.

Hours after the latest killings, Maj Gen Iftikhar Babar, the army spokesman, said that security forces had cut the number of attacks significantly since 2017, when they launched military operations in the former tribal regions bordering Afghanistan and elsewhere.

The border fence is now 84 per cent complete, he said.