By Javed Aziz Khan
The NWFP government was informed on November 10 that a suicide bomber had been sent from the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) stronghold to attack the office of the country’s intelligence agency in any of the mentioned districts or Miramshah subdivision of the North Waziristan Agency.
“A reliable source has indicated that militants from North Waziristan are plotting attack (through suicide car-bombing) on the country’s secret agencies offices. Likely targets could be intelligence agencies’ offices in Miramshah, Dera Ismail Khan, Kohat and Peshawar, etc,” said the dispatch No 2898 from the office of
the additional chief secretary (ACS) home and tribal
affairs sent to the bosses of the Frontier police on November 10.
The message, a copy of which is available with The News, revealed that an explosive-laden vehicle, likely to be non-custom paid, might be used in the attack. “Tight security and extreme vigilance is suggested to thwart any untoward incident,” said the letter.
The sources said the information was accordingly conveyed to the capital city police officer (CCPO) of Peshawar, the SSPs of operations, coordination and investigation, Peshawar, and the district police officers (DPOs) concerned the same day.
The sources said security was already at its best but it was further beefed up around the offices of spy agencies in Peshawar, Kohat, Dera Ismail Khan and Miramshah after receiving the tip-off.
The suicide bomber, however, succeeded in bombing the regional office of the ISI on the Khyber Road with a mini-truck.
The blast, triggered through high-intensity ex-
plosives, killed 12 people and injured around 70 people
but the destruction it caused to the infrastructure was colossal.
The tragic aspect of the story is that some of the police stations in the province received the information conveyed by the office of the ACS days after the explosion at the ISI headquarters.