Taliban Militants Claim Responsibility for Rare Attack in Pakistan’s Capital

Pakistan Taliban which was prohibited from claiming Tuesday’s responsibility for a rare attack in Islamabad who killed a police officer and injured the other two.

Police officials said two gunmen riding a motorcycle opened fire on a security checkpoint near one of the busy city markets on Monday. They said the next shot killed the two attackers.

“The Fatfire by Martyred terrorists was a police officer while two others were injured,” said the police statement.

Pakistani Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed condemned weapons as acts of terrorism.

“We have received a kind of signal that the terrorist incident began to occur in Islamabad,” local media quoted Ahmed as a notification to reporters after attending the cemetery of police officers who were killed.

Pakistani Taliban, known as the Tehrik-I-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement on Twitter and confirmed the murder of the two armed men involved in it.

TTP has increased attacks in Pakistan, especially since early December when a 30-day ceasefire between militants and the government ended.

The Afghan Taliban decision has mediated a ceasefire to try to open the way for substantive peace talks between the two enemies. But Pakistani Taliban refused to extend the ceasefire agreement, on the grounds of lack of progress in the conversation.

Over the years, TTP has claimed responsibility for carrying out hundreds of suicide bombings and other attacks in Pakistan which killed thousands of Pakistani civilians and security forces.

Pakistan said the leaders and TTP fighters had sheltered in Afghanistan where they held cross-border terrorist attacks.

Last week TTP confirmed the murder of one of the top commanders in the East Afghan border province in Nangarhar. The dead were identified as senior leader of Khalid Balti but it was not clear who killed him.

The United Nations and the United States also establish the Pakistani Taliban as a global terrorist organization.

Pakistan Taliban is the largest militant clothing that fights the Pakistani government. TTP and the Afghan Taliban are close allies and together fight with international troops led by the United States who supported Western-supported government in Afghanistan until their withdrawal last year.