New Delhi: In the early hours of Saturday morning, nine heavily armed Islamist militants attacked the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) Training Air Base Mianwali, damaging three phased-out, non-operational aircraft. The PAF reported that it was able to eliminate all nine militants and any further attack to the airbase.
The caretaker Prime Minister of Pakistan, Anwaar ul Haq Kakar, saluted the “valiant” PAF, asserting that it has once again “proven its mettle” in thwarting the “cowardly terrorist attack”, in a post on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter).
“Alhumdolliah, combing and clearance operation at PAF Training Airbase Mianwali has been concluded and all nine terrorists have been sent to hell,” the PAF posted on X.
“No damage has been done to any of the PAF’s functional operational assets, while only some damage was done to three already phased out non-operational aircraft during the attack,” the PAF added.
The Mianwali air force base was rechristened the ‘PAF Base MM Alam’ in 2014 in a ceremony reportedly attended by then Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and the then Chief of Air Staff Tahir Rafique Butt.
The base, considered as the ‘cradle of fighter pilots’ by Butt, was renamed after Pakistani Air Commodore Muhammad Mehmood Alam, an air force veteran who claimed to have downed five Indian Air Force fighters within a minute during the 1965 war.
The base assigned to PAF’s Northern Air Command contains a squadron of training aircraft, including the Karakoram 8-P co-developed by China and Pakistan, a squadron of F-7 and FT-7PGs (developed from the MiG-21s) and a squadron of S319-B Alouette III light helicopters, as analysed by Air Marshal Anil Chopra (Retd.) of the Indian Air Force.
A little known militant group, the Tehreek-e-Jihad Pakistan (TJP), has reportedly claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement sent to journalists by its spokesperson.
The TJP is a new group that has been operational since earlier this year, and has carried out a string of high-profile attacks, including one that reportedly killed 12 soldiers in Balochistan province in July this year, as well as a suicide attack in which three soldiers in northwestern Pakistan reportedly lost their lives.
ThePrint looks at the history of the TJP and “rising” attacks against the Pakistani security personnel this year.
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Tehreek-e-Jihad Pakistan
The TJP was reportedly founded in February this year. In a post on X on 24 February, the TJP announced its establishment, along with naming Mullah Muhammad Qasim as its spokesperson, reported the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), a Washington D.C. based think tank.
The statement in February also reportedly outlined its goals, mentioning “Sheikh-ul-Hind” as an inspiration for its jihadi ideology. Sheikh-ul-Hind refers to Mahmud Hasan Deobandi, the third principal of the Darul Uloom Deoband, an Islamic seminary located in Deoband, Uttar Pradesh.
“We want to convey the good news to the religious circles of Pakistan that after long discussions with elder Islamic scholars and requests from sincere people, we have reached the conclusion that the objective for which the movement of Sheikh-ul-Hind emerged was destroyed after the independence of Pakistan,” said the TJP statement in Urdu, as translated by MEMRI.
“We have reached the conclusion that except through armed jihad, the enforcement of an Islamic system is not possible in Pakistan,” the TJP statement added, while announcing the establishment of the organisation under emir Maulana Abdullah Yaghistani, as reported by MEMRI.
Since its inception it has taken responsibility for attacks mainly in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) and Balochistan provinces. It took responsibility for an attack on the military camp of the Pakistani Frontier Corps on 12 May in Balochistan, an attack on an under-construction college in Lakki Marwat district in KPK in April and for another attack in the town of Kabal also in KPK.
Rising attacks on Pakistani security forces
Saturday’s attacks come a day after 17 soldiers were killed in different incidents in Balochistan and KPK provinces, according to media reports.
The losses of Pakistani security personnel has hit an eight-year high in the first nine months of 2023, according to a report published in September by the Centre for Research and Security Studies (CRSS), an Islamabad-based think tank.
Pakistani security forces lost at least 386 personnel, roughly 36 per cent of all fatalities between the months of January and September 2023, including 137 army personnel and 208 police personnel as reported by CRSS, says the report.
Since 2015, the current year has been the highest in the number of security forces fatalities. In 2015 there were 415 fatalities amongst security personnel, as reported by CRSS.
Balochistan witnessed a 131 percent increase in fatalities during the third quarter (Q3) of 2023, in comparison to the same period in 2022 – from 73 in Q3 2022 to 169 in Q3 2023. KPK witnessed a 28 percent increase in fatalities between Q3 2022 and Q3 2023 – 195 in Q3 2022 to 249 in Q3 2023 – as reported by CRSS.
(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)
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