Cryptocurrency used to fund terrorists behind Peshawar suicide attack: source

PESHAWAR: Crypto currency and other sources were used for payment to an international terrorist network behind suicide attack on police in Peshawar and involved in target killing of religious scholars, a source disclosed.

“The international terrorist network was busted a couple of months back that used to get money from different people via crypto currency, mobile phone banking and other sources,” an investigator confirmed.

Another investigator said they tracked people in different cities through which they got money in the last many months. The people who arranged for their stay in Pakistan as well as those who made fake CNICs were also identified. The network was busted a couple of months back. The embassy of the foreigner suicide bomber was informed about the involvement of its citizen in terrorism in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Senior investigators believed that an international terrorist network that carried out attack on a police party in Peshawar in May was also behind attacks on religious personalities in the country, including suicide attack on Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Sami chief Maulana Hamidul Haq in February. The group was identified after the suicide attack on a police car in the limits of Chamkani police station in May. Two policemen were martyred and three others were wounded in the attack on May 11.

The source disclosed the suicide bomber in the incident was later identified to be foreigner from a Central Asian country. He was suspected as he could neither speak Pashto nor Urdu. A fake Pakistani CNIC and an Afghan card were recovered from him. During the investigation, he added, some other members of the ring including foreigners were identified.

The source disclosed that the same network is believed to be involved in attack on Maulana Hamidul Haq, the chief of JUIS, who was martyred in a suicide attack outside the mosque in Darul Uloom Haqqania in Nowshera on February 28. The suicide bomber, the source said, who targeted police in Peshawar was launched to carry out attack on a rally of JUIF in the vicinity on May 11 but he detonated explosives around his vest when intercepted by the cops in the half way. The rally was addressed by the JUIF chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman. The same terror network was suspected to be behind a series of targeted attacks on religious personalities in parts of Peshawar. Two members of the same network were killed during an encounter with the Counter Terrorism Department in Khyber last week.