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Pakistani militants say they worked with Islamic State to attack police college

A man reads a newspaper's coverage of the attack on the Police Training College, at a newsstand in Quetta, Pakistan,

By Syed Raza Hassan and Saud Mehsud

QUETTA/DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (Reuters) – A faction of the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) cooperated with Islamic State this week in an attack on a police college that killed 63 people, the group’s spokesman told Reuters on Wednesday.

The confirmation of a link between the two groups will stoke fears that Islamic State, based in Syria and Iraq, is building a presence in Pakistan.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for Monday’s attack in the city of Quetta and released photographs of the purported gunmen who killed cadets during a raid that lasted nearly five hours.

Pakistani authorities, who in September said they had crushed Islamic State’s efforts to enter Pakistan, pinned the blame on Al-Alami, a faction of LeJ.

Al-Alami spokesman Ali bin Sufyan told Reuters by instant message: “We have no direct link with Daesh (Islamic State), but we have done this attack together.”

He declined to give specifics, saying only: “We will provide help to anyone who asks against Pakistani security forces, and we will also accept help for this.”

ACCUSING INDIA

Provincial government spokesman Anwar-ul-Haq Kakar said the death toll from the attack had risen to 63, and that Islamic State’s claim of responsibility was “part of Indian design to malign Pakistan that this terror group has emerged in our soil”.

Pakistan has previously accused India of fomenting unrest in the province of Baluchistan, of which Quetta is the capital. A spokesman for India’s Foreign Ministry said: “We reject this baseless allegation completely.”

Concern has been growing in Pakistan that Islamic State will seek to exacerbate long-standing sectarian tensions that have flared up in recent years.

The Sunni Muslim LeJ has carried out some of the worst sectarian attacks in Pakistan’s history, including several major bombings in Quetta, and has often targeted the Shi’ite Hazara minority.

Analysts have long speculated that Islamic State would strike up a partnership with LeJ, even though the Pakistani group is affiliated with Islamic State’s rival, al Qaeda.

LeJ has claimed responsibility for a slew of attacks in Pakistan’s commercial capital Karachi, though officials doubt that all the claims are true.

In August, Pakistan announced a 5 million rupee ($48,000) reward for information leading to arrest of Syed Safdar, the head of al-Alami, who goes by the nom de guerre Yousuf Khorasani.

Hiji Behram Khan, father of Dilawar, a police cadet who was killed in Monday’s attack on the Police Training College, holds pictures of his son outside his home on the outskirts of Quetta, Pakistan, October 26, 2016. REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro

INTERCEPTED CALLS

General Sher Afgun, a senior military commander in Baluchistan, told media that intercepted calls suggested the gunmen had received orders from across the border in Afghanistan.

Afghan officials have consistently denied sheltering anti-Pakistan militants, but the border is not fully under government control.

The Quetta attack has also reignited a debate in Pakistan about the need for authorities to target all militant groups, not only those who are actively fighting against the state.

Pakistan has for its part been accused of harboring leaders of the Afghan Taliban in Quetta as well as several militant groups opposed to the Indian government, something Islamabad denies.

Critics say that, by not stamping out radical groups and their ideologies, Pakistan is making itself a recruiting ground for Islamist militants.

“It may not be far off the mark to assume that militants in the country have assistance from across the borders. But this cannot change the fact that they essentially have roots within our own soil and that these have grown over the decades,” The News, an English-language newspaper, said in an editorial.

Dawn, another English-language newspaper, said: “Blaming sanctuaries across the border or even foreign support is a political game when strong action is called for.”

(Writing by Drazen Jorgic; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

Islamic State claims attack on Pakistan police academy, 59 dead

By Gul Yusufzai

QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) – Middle East-based Islamic State on Tuesday said fighters loyal to their movement attacked a police training college in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta, in a raid that officials said killed 59 people and wounded more than 100.

Pakistani authorities have blamed another militant group, Lashkar-e-Janghvi, for the late-night siege, though the Islamic State claim included photographs of three alleged attackers.

Hundreds of trainees were stationed at the facility when masked gunmen stormed the college on the outskirts of Quetta late on Monday. Some cadets were taken hostage during the raid, which lasted nearly five hours. Most of the dead were cadets.

“Militants came directly into our barrack. They just barged in and started firing point-blank. We started screaming and running around in the barrack,” one police cadet who survived told media.

Other cadets spoke of jumping out of windows and cowering under beds as masked gunmen hunted them down. Video footage from inside one of the barracks showed blackened walls and rows of charred beds.

Islamic State’s Amaq news agency published the claim of responsibility, saying three IS fighters “used machine guns and grenades, then blew up their explosive vests in the crowd”.

Mir Sarfaraz Bugti, home minister of the province of Baluchistan, whose capital is Quetta, said the gunmen attacked a dormitory in the training facility, while cadets rested and slept.

“Two attackers blew up themselves, while a third one was shot in the head by security men,” Bugti said. Earlier, officials had said there were five to six gunmen.

A Reuters photographer at the scene said authorities carried out the body of a teenaged boy who they said was one of the attackers and had been shot dead by security forces.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Army chief General Raheel Sharif both traveled to Quetta after the attack and participated in a special security meeting on Tuesday afternoon, the prime minister’s office said.

One of the top military commanders in Baluchistan, General Sher Afgun, told media that calls intercepted between the attackers and their handlers suggested they were from the sectarian Sunni militant group, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ).

“We came to know from the communication intercepts that there were three militants who were getting instructions from Afghanistan,” Afgun told media, adding that the Al Alami faction of LeJ was behind the attack.

LeJ, whose roots are in the heartland Punjab province, has a history of carrying out sectarian attacks in Baluchistan, particularly against the minority Hazara Shias. Pakistan has previously accused LeJ of colluding with al Qaeda.

Authorities launched a crackdown against LeJ last year, particularly in Punjab province. In a major blow to the organization, Malik Ishaq, the group’s leader, was killed in July 2015 alongside 13 members of the central leadership in what police say was a failed escape attempt.

“Two, three days ago we had intelligence reports of a possible attack in Quetta city, that is why security was beefed up in Quetta, but they struck at the police training college,” Sanaullah Zehri, chief minister of Baluchistan, told the Geo TV channel.

ISLAMIC STATE

Pakistan has improved its security situation in recent years but Islamist groups continue to pose a threat and stage major attacks in the mainly Muslim nation of 190 million.

Islamic State has sought to make inroads over the past year, hoping to exploit the country’s growing sectarian divisions.

Monday night’s assault on the police college was the deadliest in Pakistan since a suicide bomber killed 70 people in an attack on mourners gathered at a hospital in Quetta in August.

The August attack was claimed by IS, but also by a Pakistani Taliban faction, Jamaat-ur-Ahrar.

The military had dismissed previous Islamic State claims of responsibility and last month said it had crushed the Middle East-based group’s attempt to expand in Pakistan. It also dismissed previous IS claims of responsibility as ‘propaganda’.

A photograph of the three alleged attackers released by Islamic State showed one individual with a striking resemblance to the picture of a dead gunman taken by a policeman inside the college, and shared with Reuters.

Analysts say Islamic State clearly has a presence in Pakistan and there is growing evidence that some local groups are working with IS.

“The problem with this government is that it seems to be in a complete state of denial,” said Zahid Hussain, an Islamabad-based security analyst.

HIDING UNDER BEDS

Wounded cadets spoke of scurrying for cover after being woken by the sound of bullets.

“I was asleep, my friends were there as well, and we took cover under the beds,” one unidentified cadet told Geo TV. “My friends were shot, but I only received a (small) wound on my head.”

Another cadet said he did not have ammunition to fight back.

Officials said the attackers targeted the center’s hostel, where around 200 to 250 police recruits were resting. At least three explosions were reported at the scene by media.

Quetta has long been regarded as a base for the Afghan Taliban, whose leadership has regularly held meetings there.

Baluchistan is no stranger to violence, with separatist fighters launching regular attacks on security forces for nearly a decade and the military striking back.

Militants, particularly sectarian groups, have also launched a campaign of suicide bombings and assassinations of minority Shias.

Attacks are becoming rarer but security forces need to be more alert, Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan warned.

“Our problem is that when an attack happens, we are alert for a week after, ten days later, until 20 days pass, (but) then it goes back to business as usual,” he said.

“We need to be alert all the time.”

(Additional reporting by Syed Raza Hassan in KARACHI, and Mehreen Zahra-Malik, Kay Johnson, Asad Hashim in ISLAMABAD, and Mohamed el Sherif in CAIRO; Writing by Kay Johnson, Mehreen Zahra-Malik, Drazen Jorgic; Editing by Catherine Evans and Clarence Fernandez)

Afghan refugees in Pakistan feel heat of rising regional tensions

Afghan women sit with their children after arriving at a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

By James Mackenzie and Mirwais Harooni

KABUL (Reuters) – For Samihullah, a tailor from a family of Afghan refugees in Pakistan, the first indication that it might be time to leave the country was the insults leveled at him in the bazaar.

Born to refugee parents in the northern Pakistani town of Mansehra, he never gained citizenship but was always considered an Afghan, something which began to count against him as local resentment grew over Afghanistan’s deepening ties with India.

Many Pakistanis view India as their enemy at the best of times, and that attitude has hardened in recent months as tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals have risen.

“Afghans used to be called ‘Kabuli’ in Pakistan, but now Pakistanis call them ‘Hindus’ because we signed economic agreements with India,” said Samihullah, who, like many Afghans, goes by one name.

Married with two wives, one Afghan and one Pakistani, the 32-year-old is among thousands of people who have gone to Afghanistan and are housed temporarily in a refugee center near Kabul.

Even before the latest clashes between Indian and Pakistani soldiers in the disputed Kashmir region, the climate was more hostile.

“They were telling us, we chose India’s friendship so we should go to India. We were hiding in our shops and homes to avoid being arrested,” Samihullah said.

After almost 40 years of war in Afghanistan, Pakistan has some 1.5 million registered refugees, one of the largest such populations in the world, according to the United Nations refugee agency. More than a million others are estimated to live there unregistered.

Islamabad, which announced new repatriation plans last year, has stepped up pressure to send people back and numbers have risen sharply in recent months as Afghan-Indian relations strengthened and those between India and Pakistan soured.

“These people were our guests, we kept them in our house. Afghanistan should be grateful to us,” said a Pakistani army official based in the southern city of Quetta.

“Instead it … has become buddies with India, it’s like stabbing us in the back.”

The treatment Samihullah and others at the reception center complain of reflects how quickly diplomatic tensions can affect refugees, many of whom must start again from scratch.

“These returnees are coming back after more than three decades in exile,” said Maya Ameratunga, director of UNHCR’s Country office in Kabul. “It will take a big adjustment.”

The United Nations provides $400 a person in emergency help as well as medical and other assistance, but international funds are drying up in the face of a series of global crises.

Longer term reintegration into a country many never knew as home may be difficult.

“Some people are able to go to live with relatives, but others may not have that possibility. So unfortunately what we are seeing is people becoming displaced,” Ameratunga said.

“HONOR AND DIGNITY”

Ties between Afghanistan and Pakistan have long been clouded by mutual accusations that militant extremists find shelter on the other side of the border.

But Pakistani officials deny there has been systematic harassment of Afghans living in Pakistan and say their country has demonstrated great generosity to the refugee population, despite severe economic problems of its own.

“We want them to return home in peace with honor and dignity,” said Akhtar Munir, spokesman at the Pakistani embassy in Kabul, adding that there was no connection between the repatriation of Afghan refugees and India.

He said Pakistani police had clear instructions not to harass registered refugees, but added that some Afghans living illegally in Pakistan were involved in crime, and action against criminals should not be seen as mistreatment of refugees.

The spike in the number of returnees has, however, moved in step with escalating friction between Afghanistan and Pakistan, which flared into brief clashes at the Torkham border crossing in June.

A series of economic and political accords with India in recent months and the fanfare around the completion of the Indian-financed Salma dam in western Afghanistan in June has also weighed on relations.

According to UNHCR figures, the number of assisted returns jumped from 1,433 in June to 11,416 in July and 60,743 in August. More than 90,000 have been returned to Afghanistan so far this year, almost all from Pakistan, and the number is expected to pass 220,000 for the year.

Although repatriation is not compulsory, many Afghans say life in Pakistan has become so uncomfortable they feel they have little choice.

Even in areas like Baluchistan in the south, where authorities have long taken a more lenient view of refugees than in the northwest frontier areas, attitudes have changed, particularly in the wake of recent attacks.

“My son was stopped at a checkpoint and an officer tore up his Afghan citizenship card,” said Bibi Shireen, who moved to Quetta from the southern Afghan city of Kandahar 30 years ago.

“Now he has no identification and we’re scared he could get picked up any day now and sent away because he isn’t registered,” she said.

Previously, Afghan refugees did not need visas or passports to cross the porous frontier. This has now changed, a step Pakistan says is needed to ensure control of militant extremists on both sides of the border.

Despite the problems, many returnees say they are not unhappy to be back, though they need help with food and shelter as harsh winter months approach.

“We did our best over the past 20 years but could not make a living,” said Sheer Banu Ahmadzai, a burqa-veiled mother who left her home in the northern province of Baghlan as a child. “I hope we have the chance to make a living in our own country.”

(Additional reporting by Mehreen Zahra-Malik in QUETTA; Editing by Mike Collett-White)

Pakistan ‘completely rejects’ Indian claim of cross-border strikes

By Asad Hashim and Fayaz Bukhari

ISLAMABAD/SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) – Pakistan on Friday “completely rejected” India’s claim to have sent troops across its disputed border in Kashmir to kill suspected militants, as India evacuated villages near the frontier amid concerns about a military escalation.

In a rare public announcement of such a raid, India said it had carried out “surgical strikes” on Thursday, sending special forces to kill men preparing to sneak into its territory and attack major cities.

Indian officials said troops had killed militants numbering in the double digits and that its soldiers had returned safely to base before dawn, but declined to provide more evidence of the operation.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif maintained that India fired unprovoked from its side of the heavily militarized frontier in the disputed region of Kashmir, the flashpoint for two of three wars between the nuclear-armed neighbors, and killed two soldiers.

“The Cabinet joined the Prime Minister in completely rejecting the Indian claims of carrying out ‘surgical strikes’,” Sharif’s office said in a statement issued after a cabinet meeting on Friday.

It added that the country was ready “to counter any aggressive Indian designs,” but gave no further details.

The U.S. State Department said Washington was watching the situation closely and urged “calm and restraint” by both sides, saying it did not want to see escalation by the two nuclear-armed countries.

“Nuclear-capable states have a clear responsibility to exercise restraint regarding nuclear weapons and missile capabilities,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner said. “That’s my message publicly and that’s certainly our message directly.”

Pakistan captured an Indian soldier on Thursday on its side of the border, but India said this was unrelated to the raid as the man had inadvertently strayed across the frontier.

Domestic pressure had been building on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to retaliate after 19 soldiers were killed in a Sept. 18 attack on an Indian army base in Kashmir that India blames on infiltrators who crossed from Pakistani territory.

A senior leader of Modi’s ruling party declared himself satisfied with India’s “multi-pronged” response to the attack on the army base.

“For Pakistan, terrorism has come as a cheaper option all these years. Time to make it costly for it,” Ram Madhav, national general secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party, wrote in a column for the Indian Express newspaper.

India has also launched a diplomatic campaign to try to isolate Pakistan. Its decision on Tuesday to boycott a summit of South Asian leaders in November in Islamabad was followed by Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Bhutan expressing their “inability” to attend.

Sri Lanka said on Friday that peace and security were vital for regional cooperation, but stopped short of pulling out.

“SURGICAL FARCE”

While India’s public and politicians have welcomed the operation, Pakistan greeted New Delhi’s version of events with scepticism and ridicule.

Television news channels and newspapers reported only small arms and mortar fire, a relatively routine occurrence on the de facto border.

Pakistan’s Express Tribune, an affiliate of the New York Times, led its edition with the headline “‘Surgical’ farce blows up in India’s face”.

Rising tensions have also hit cultural ties.

Pakistani cinemas have stopped screening Indian films in “solidarity” with the armed forces, and after an Indian filmmakers’ group banned its members from hiring Pakistani actors. Indian-made Bollywood films are wildly popular in both countries.

India’s announcement of the raid on Thursday raised the possibility of military escalation that could wreck a 2003 Kashmir ceasefire.

India evacuated more than 10,000 villagers living near the border, and ordered security forces to upgrade surveillance along the frontier in Jammu and Kashmir state, part of the 3,300-km (2,100 miles) border.

Hundreds of villages were being cleared along a 15 km (9 mile) strip in the lowland region of Jammu and further north on the Line of Control in the Himalayan mountains of Kashmir.

“Our top priority is to move women and children to government buildings, guest houses and marriage halls,” said Nirmal Singh, deputy chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir.

“People who have not been able to migrate were instructed not to venture out of their houses early in the morning or late in the night.”

Modi’s government has been struggling to contain protests on the streets of Kashmir, where more than 80 civilians have been killed and thousands wounded in the last 10 weeks after a young separatist militant was killed by Indian forces.

Pakistan said on Friday that Sharif’s special envoys had arrived in Beijing to brief China on the deteriorating situation in Indian-controlled Kashmir. China, a Pakistan ally, expressed its concern, Pakistan’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

Farmer Rakesh Singh, 56, who lives in the Arnia sector of Jammu, said his family were among the first to leave home because his village was within range of Pakistan’s artillery.

“We suffer the most,” he said. “It is nothing new for us.”

(additional reporting by Shihar Aneez in COLOMBO; Writing by Rupam Jain and Tommy Wilkes; Editing by Nick Macfie and Alistair Bell)

In escalation, India says launches strikes on militants in Pakistan

By Sanjeev Miglani and Asad Hashim

NEW DELHI/ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – India said on Thursday it had conducted “surgical strikes” on suspected militants preparing to infiltrate from Pakistan-ruled Kashmir, making its first direct military response to an attack on an army base it blames on Pakistan.

Pakistan said two of its soldiers had been killed in exchanges of fire and in repulsing an Indian “raid”, but denied India had made any targeted strikes across the de facto frontier that runs through the disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir.

The cross-border action inflicted significant casualties, the Indian army’s head of operations told reporters in New Delhi, while a senior government official said Indian soldiers had crossed the border to target militant camps.

The announcement followed through on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s warning that those India held responsible “would not go unpunished” for a Sept. 18 attack on an Indian army base at Uri, near the Line of Control, that killed 18 soldiers.

The strikes also raised the possibility of a military escalation between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan that would wreck a 2003 Kashmir ceasefire.

Lt General Ranbir Singh, the Indian army’s director general of military operations (DGMO), said the strikes were launched on Wednesday based on “very specific and credible information that some terrorist units had positioned themselves … with an aim to carry out infiltration and terrorist strikes”.

Singh said he had called his Pakistani counterpart to inform him of the operation, which had ended. India later briefed opposition parties and foreign ambassadors in New Delhi but stopped short of disclosing operational details.

“It would indicate that this was all pretty well organized,” said one diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity because the briefing by Foreign Secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar was confidential.

Pakistan’s military spokesman slammed the Indian account as “totally baseless and completely a lie”, saying the contact between DGMOs only included communication regarding cross-border firing, which was within existing rules of engagement.

“We deny it. There is no such thing on the ground. There is just the incident of the firing last night, which we responded to,” Lt General Asim Bajwa told news channel Geo TV.

“We have fired in accordance with the rules of engagement[…] We are acting in a responsible way.”

Pakistan said nine of its soldiers had also been wounded. Neither side’s account could be independently verified.

India’s disclosure of such strikes was unprecedented, said Ajai Sahni of the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi, and sent a message not only to his own people but to the international community.

“India expects global support to launch more focused action against Pakistan,” Sahni told Reuters. “There was tremendous pressure on the Indian prime minister to prove that he is ready to take serious action.”

NO MORE STRATEGIC RESTRAINT

The border clash also comes at a delicate time for Pakistan, with powerful Army Chief of Staff General Raheel Sharif due to retire shortly and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif still to decide on a successor.

The Pakistani premier condemned what he called India’s “unprovoked and naked aggression” and called a cabinet meeting on Friday to discuss further steps.

Share markets in India and Pakistan fell on India’s announcement. India’s NSE index closed down 1.6 percent after falling as much 2.1 percent to its lowest since Aug. 29, while Pakistan’s benchmark 100-share index was down 0.15 percent.

India announced its retaliation at a news conference in New Delhi that was hurriedly called, only to be delayed, as Modi chaired a meeting of his cabinet committee on security to be briefed on the operation.

“The prime minister is clear that this is exactly what we should have done,” a senior government official told Reuters on condition of anonymity. “Informing the world about the surgical strike was important today.”

U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice spoke with her Indian counterpart, Ajit Doval, before news of the Indian cross-border operation broke, the White House said.

Rice discussed deepening collaboration between the United States and India on counter-terrorism and urged Pakistan to combat and delegitimize individuals and entities designated by the United Nations as terrorists.

SIX-HOUR EXCHANGE

Exchanges of fire took place in the Bhimber, Hot Spring, Kel and Lipa sectors in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, and lasted about six hours, the Pakistani military said earlier.

An Indian army officer in Kashmir said there had been shelling from the Pakistani side of the border into the Nowgam district, near the Line of Control, and the exchange of fire continued during the day.

There were no casualties or damage reported on the Indian side of the frontier. An Indian military source told Reuters that the operation was carried out on the Pakistani side of the Line of Control where there were between five and seven infiltration “launchpads”.

“It was a shallow strike. The operation began at around midnight and it was over before sunrise,” this source, who had been briefed by his superiors on the operation, said. “All our men our back. Significant casualties inflicted. Damage assessment still going on.”

Both India and Pakistan claim Kashmir in full, but govern separate parts, and have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947, two of them over Kashmir.

Tension between the South Asian rivals has been high since an Indian crackdown on dissent in Kashmir following the killing by security forces of Burhan Wani, a young separatist leader, in July.

They rose further when New Delhi blamed Pakistan for the Uri attack, which inflicted the heaviest toll on the Indian army of any single incident in 14 years.

India has been ratcheting up pressure on Pakistan, seeking to isolate it at the U.N. General Assembly in New York and winning expressions of condemnation from the United States, Britain and France over the attack.

China, another of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and a traditional ally of Pakistan, has urged dialogue between the two antagonists.

On Wednesday, officials from several countries said a November summit of a the South Asian regional group due to be held in Islamabad may be called off after India, Bangladesh and Afghanistan said they would not attend.

(Writing by Douglas Busvine; Additional reporting by Fayaz Bukhari in SRINAGAR, Rupam Jain in NEW DELHI, Drazen Jorgic and Mehreen Zahra-Malik in ISLAMABAD.; Editing by Nick Macfie)

India begins campaign at United Nations to isolate Pakistan

India's Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj addresses the United Nations General Assembly in New York

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – India began a campaign to isolate Pakistan at the United Nations on Monday, telling the 193-member General Assembly it was time to identify nations who nurture, peddle and export terrorism and isolate them if they don’t join the global fight.

India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said the arrest of Pakistani Bahadur Ali was “living proof of Pakistan’s complicity in crossborder terror.” India has said Ali confessed that he was trained by the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant group.

“But when confronted with such evidence, Pakistan remains in denial. It persists in the belief that such attacks will enable it to obtain the territory it covets,” she said on the final day of the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations.

“My firm advice to Pakistan is: abandon this dream. Let me state unequivocally that Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India and will always remain so,” Swaraj said.

India accuses Pakistan of having a role in a Sept. 18 raid on an Indian army base in Kashmir, one of the deadliest attacks in the Himalayan region that has been divided since 1947 and lies at the heart of the nuclear-armed neighbors’ rivalry. Pakistan denies any role in the attack.

“We need to forget our prejudices and join hands together to script an effective strategy against terror,” Swaraj said. “And if any nation refuses to join this global strategy, then we must isolate it.”

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowed on Saturday to mount a global campaign to isolate Pakistan. Last month U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry urged Pakistan to join other nations in fighting terrorism.

India has long accused Pakistan of backing militant groups operating in disputed Kashmir as well as of sending fighters to other parts of the country to carry out acts of violence. Pakistan denies the allegations.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif last week told the U.N. General Assembly India had put unacceptable conditions on dialogue.

“What pre-conditions?” Swaraj said on Monday. “We took the initiative to resolve issues not on the basis of conditions, but on the basis of friendship.”

Pakistan’s U.N. Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi dismissed Swaraj’s statement on Monday as “a litany of falsehoods and baseless allegations.”

“For the Indian Foreign Minister to claim that her country has imposed no preconditions for talks with Pakistan is another flight from reality. India suspended talks more than a year ago, and has refused to resume these despite repeated offers from Pakistan,” Lodhi said.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by David Gregorio)

Pakistan says it foiled Islamic State expansion into country

Lieutenant General Asim Bajwa, the military's top spokesman speaks during a news conference in Rawalpindi, Pakistan,

By Kay Johnson and Asad Hashim

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (Reuters) – Pakistan’s military on Thursday said it has crushed Islamic State’s attempt to expand there, dismissing as propaganda claims by the Middle East-based Islamist militants that they had carried out a major bombing last month.

The comments were, however, a rare acknowledgment by a senior Pakistani official that Islamic State, mainly based in Syria and Iraq, has had any active presence in a country that is home to myriad militant groups including the Afghan and Pakistan Taliban, al Qaeda and the Haqqani network.

Lieutenant General Asim Bajwa, the military’s top spokesman, also rejected U.S. complaints that it was not acting against the Haqqani network, suspected of carrying out suicide bomb attacks in Kabul, saying Pakistan was pursuing an “indiscriminate operation” against all militants.

Pakistani authorities have so far arrested 309 people associated with Islamic State (IS) on its territory, he said. They were involved in attacks on media and security personnel, and were planning attacks on government, diplomatic and civilian targets, he added.

“They tried to make an ingress, and they failed and they have been apprehended so far,” Bajwa said.

Most of those captured by Pakistan were established Pakistani jihadists who had switched loyalties to Islamic State’s self-proclaimed worldwide caliphate, but about 25 were foreigners including Afghans and some Syrians, he said.

Bajwa said that of a core group of 20 organizers, “we have captured all of them, except for one who I am sure is not in Pakistan”.

He said IS fighters were still present in the Afghan provinces of Nangarhar, Khost and Kunar, which lie along the border with Pakistan.

The movement’s leader for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Hafiz Saeed Khan, was killed last month by a U.S. drone strike in eastern Afghanistan.

International concern that Islamic State was establishing an operational presence in Pakistan increased after the group said it carried out a suicide bombing at a hospital in the city of Quetta that killed more than 70 people.

However, a breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban also claimed the hospital bombing and Bajwa said he believed the Islamic State statement was false.

“We haven’t got any evidence of involvement by Daesh. I think this was just an attempt to glorify themselves,” he said, using the name by which IS is also known.

“NO GOOD OR BAD TALIBAN”

The military spokesman also dismissed U.S. concerns that Pakistan has been selectively targeting militant groups on its soil.

“There is no concept of good or bad Taliban,” he said.

“Terrorists of all organizations, including Haqqanis, including Afghan Taliban, have been killed and some apprehended … so if you say that you know actions have not been taken or (are) not being taken, that is wrong.”

He spoke a day after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry urged Islamabad to push harder against militants hiding within its borders.

The United States has criticized Pakistan in the past for not acting against those groups, and last month it refused to release $300 million in military disbursements for that reason.

Critics say Pakistan has targeted only militants who attack its own state, not those active in neighboring Afghanistan and India.

Pakistan has been fighting the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an umbrella group of militants fighting to impose strict Islamic law in Pakistan, since 2007.

It is also home to other armed groups, such as the Haqqani network and Afghan Taliban, who fight international forces in neighboring Afghanistan.

Bajwa criticized international and local security forces in Afghanistan for not sealing the border when the Pakistan army began the latest phase of its military offensive against Pakistan-based militants in July 2014.

“Before the operation started, Pakistan had informed all stakeholders at all levels, political, diplomatic, military … We told them that you will have to take action … and that did not happen unfortunately,” he said.

He also released rare figures on progress in its anti-militant operation, saying more than 3,500 had been killed. He added that 516 soldiers had also been killed and 2,272 wounded.

It is difficult to verify those figures independently, as access to the conflict zone is heavily restricted.

“We have paid $106.9 billion (on) this war … If anyone points a finger at Pakistan or casts an eye of suspicion on Pakistan, they need to know this cost,” said Bajwa.

(Editing by Mike Collett-White)

Teacher in violence-torn Indian Kashmir starts makeshift classrooms

A protester prepares to throw a stone towards an Indian policeman during a protest in Srinagar against the recent killings in Kashmir

By Fayaz Bukhari

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) – Wedding halls and prayer rooms have been turned into classrooms in Indian-administered Kashmir as families struggle to provide children with a normal life after more than 50 days of the Muslim-majority region’s worst violence in years.

At least 68 civilians and two security officials have been killed and more than 9,000 people injured, according to official tallies, in clashes between protesters chaffing at Indian rule and security forces.

Authorities trying to stifle protests that erupted after a young militant leader was gunned down by the security forces on July 8 ordered schools and colleges to close two days later.

There’s no sign of them re-opening.

Teacher Ghulam Rasool Kambay, seeing children becoming increasingly restless cooped up at home, decided to do something.

He opened a tutorial center in a village on Aug. 3 and now has more than a dozen of them in villages in a district south of the region’s main city of Srinagar.

“The response is good. We have about 800 students in these centers. Parents are eager to send their children as they have no option right now,” Kambay told Reuters.

Students find their way to the makeshift schools in small groups through back lanes, careful not to attract the attention of police.

They often sit on the floor as there are not enough desks and share books.

“It’s more like a self-learning exercise, just a way to keep in touch with books,” said Muneer Wani, 16, at his temporary school at a mosque where classes begin after morning prayers.

Muneer said it was the only place to meet friends and study.

“We can’t even go outdoors.”

Disputed Kashmir is claimed by both India and Pakistan and has been a flashpoint for more than 60 years, sparking two wars between them.

Militant groups have taken up arms to fight for independence from Indian rule or to merge with Pakistan. India has blamed Pakistan for supporting the violence. Pakistan denies that.

Thousands of teenage boys defy a curfew every day and gather in groups to throw stones at police. Almost all of the deaths have been caused by security forces shooting at protesters.

On the streets of Srinagar, people have scrawled “Go India, go back”.

Zubair Ahmad said he was too worried about the safety of his two children to send them to classes at a nearby mosque.

His wife has been teaching them at home instead, but the children were getting restless, he said.

“It is very difficult for children … they’ve become aggressive.”

(Writing by Rupam Jain; Editing by Tom Lasseter, Robert Birsel)

U.S. aid to Pakistan shrinks amid mounting frustration over militants

A State Department contractor adjust a Pakistan national flag before a meeting between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Pakistan's Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan on the sidelines of the White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism at the State Department in Washington February 19, 2015.

By Idrees Ali

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Pakistan’s continued support for resurgent militant groups hostile to the United States, coupled with warming U.S. military and business relations with India, is sharply diminishing Islamabad’s strategic importance as an ally to Washington, U.S. military, diplomatic, and intelligence officials and outside experts said.

The United States has cut both military and economic aid to Pakistan sharply in recent years, reflecting mounting frustration among a growing number of officials with the nuclear-armed country’s support for the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan.

That frustration has dogged U.S.-Pakistan ties for more than a decade, but has spiked anew as the militant Islamic group has advanced in parts of Afghanistan that U.S. and allied forces once helped to secure, U.S. officials and analysts say.

“We’re seeing a very definitive and very sharp reorienting of U.S. policy in South Asia away from Afghanistan-Pakistan and more towards India,” said Michael Kugelman, a South Asia expert with the Woodrow Wilson Center, a Washington think-tank.

(For graphic showing U.S. annual military and civilian aid to Pakistan since 2011 click http://tmsnrt.rs/2boG04J)

The U.S. relationship with Pakistan has long been a transactional one marked by mutual mistrust, marriages of convenience, and mood swings.

The long-standing U.S. frustration with Pakistan’s refusal to stop supporting the Taliban, especially within the U.S. military and intelligence community, is now overriding President Barack Obama’s administration’s desire to avoid renewed military involvement in Afghanistan, as well as concerns that China could capitalize on fraying ties between Washington and Islamabad, the U.S. officials said.

Obama announced last month he would keep U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan at 8,400 through the end of his administration, shelving plans to cut the force in half by year end.

American civilian and military aid to Pakistan, once the third-largest recipient of U.S. foreign assistance, is expected to total less than $1 billion in 2016, down from a recent peak of more than $3.5 billion in 2011, according to U.S. government data. The United States has not appropriated less than $1 billion to Pakistan since at least 2007.

The decrease also comes amid budget constraints and shifting global priorities for the United States, including fighting Islamic State militants, a resurgent Russia and an increasingly assertive China.

In March, Republican Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he would seek to bar $430 million in U.S. funding for Islamabad’s purchase of $700 million of Lockheed Martin Corp. F-16 fighter jets.

Earlier this month, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter refused to authorize $300 million in military reimbursements to Pakistan, citing the limited gains the country has made fighting the militant Haqqani network, which is based in the country’s tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. The approval of such funding has been mostly routine in the past.

LIMITS OF COOPERATION

The U.S. Congress has yet to authorize hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Pakistan for the next fiscal year. The Pentagon is due to authorize $350 million in military aid for the next fiscal year, and is unlikely to approve it under the Obama administration, a U.S. defense official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

“Congress is no longer willing to fund a state that supports the Afghan Taliban, which is killing American soldiers,” said Bruce Riedel, a Brookings Institution expert and former CIA officer who headed Obama’s first Afghanistan policy review.

In a stark illustration of the limits of U.S.–Pakistan cooperation, the United States killed Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour in a drone strike in Pakistan’s remote Baluchistan region in May, without informing Pakistan.

Some U.S. officials still warn of the dangers of allowing relations with Pakistan to deteriorate. In a July 26 opinion piece in the Financial Times, Senator John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, argued that “the strategic imperative for improved relations between the U.S. and Pakistan is clear – for the safety of American troops and the success of their mission in Afghanistan, for the stability of the region and for the national security of both Pakistan and the U.S.”

A senior Pakistani defense official said the United States will continue to need Pakistan in the fight against terrorism. Authorities in Islamabad have long rejected accusations that Pakistan has provided support and sanctuary to militants operating in Afghanistan.

“We have lost over a hundred billion dollars in fighting terrorism, which is more than anything they have given us,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

In any event, the official said, Pakistan can turn to other sources of aid, including China. Last year the two countries launched a plan for energy and infrastructure projects in Pakistan worth $46 billion.

Nevertheless, the U.S. tilt toward India, Pakistan’s arch-foe, is likely to continue.

U.S. defense companies including Lockheed Martin and Boeing Co. are entering the Indian market, and the country has become the world’s second-largest arms buyer after Saudi Arabia, according to data compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Earlier this year, India and the United States agreed in principle to share military logistics, as both sides seek to counter the growing maritime assertiveness of China.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali in Washington. Additional reporting by Tommy Wilkes and Mehreen Zahra-Malik in Islamabad.; Editing by John Walcott and Stuart Grudgings)

Blast wounds 13 in Pakistani city on edge after big large suicide attack

Security officials gather at the site of a bomb explosion in Quetta, Pakistan,

By Asad Hashim and Gul Yusufzai

QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) – A roadside bomb hit a Pakistani security vehicle and wounded 13 people on Thursday in the southwestern city of Quetta, days after a suicide bombing at a hospital killed at least 74 people, most of them lawyers, officials and media said.

The driver of the police pickup truck managed to drive the damaged vehicle to the Civil Hospital of Quetta – the same facility hit in Monday’s attack – to get the wounded to medical treatment.

The truck was parked outside the hospital with its mangled bonnet, blown-out wheels and blood-stained interior later on Thursday.

About 10 police officers were guarding the entrance to the hospital.

Provincial interior minister Safaraz Bugti said Thursday’s bomb targeted police escorting a judge, who was not hurt in the attack.

“It was a judge’s car that was passing, but I believe it was the police who were the target,” he said on Pakistani television.

Medical Superintendent Abdul Rehman Miankhel told Reuters that 13 wounded people, including four members of the security forces, were being treated at the hospital.

An announcer for Geo TV warned viewers not to gather at the scene in central Quetta for fear of a second bombing, like the one on Monday.

The Monday attack hit a large group of lawyers gathered at the hospital to mourn the head of the provincial bar association who was shot dead earlier that day.

“Care must be taken that a rush not be created at the scene as the terrorists have reached the point of barbarity where they target crowds like this,” the news announcer said.

Monday’s suicide bombing was Pakistan’s deadliest attack this year. It was claimed by both a faction of the Pakistani Taliban, Jamaat-ur-Ahrar, and also by the Islamic State militant group, which has been seeking to recruit followers in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Targeted killings have become increasingly common in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province that has seen rising violence linked to a separatist insurgency as well as sectarian tension and rising crime.

Later on Thursday, Bugti told Reuters that security at all potential targets was being beefed up around Baluchistan.

A Chinese-funded trade corridor with promised investment of $46 billion is due to pass through the gas-rich province and the government has promised to boost security.

“We have already done (added security) for our schools, educational institutions and universities … Watchtowers have also been constructed,” he said.

“But obviously this new threat against hospitals has emerged – we are checking that and will beef up.”

(Writing by Kay Johnson; Editing by Paul Tait, Robert Birsel)

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