Intelligence officer killed in Charsadda attack

Two coastguards gunned down in Pasni

PESHAWAR: Two gunmen on a motorcycle shot dead an intelligence officer in country’s northwest Monday, police said, in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group.

Akbar Ali, an intelligence sub-inspector, was on his way to work and waiting at a bus stop near his home in Charsadda district when the gunmen opened fire, Suhail Khalid, district police chief, told AFP.

“Akbar Ali was hit by four bullets from the front and was killed on the spot,” he said, adding that the attackers used a 9mm pistol and escaped.The attack was later claimed by the Islamic State group in a short statement posted on Amaq, its affiliated news agency. “Islamic State fighters have killed a Pakistan intelligence agent in the Sardaryab region... of Pakistan,” it said, referring to the local area.

Pakistan’s military last month admitted for the first time that the Islamic State group had a presence in the country but said it had detained hundreds of its militants and prevented them from carrying out major attacks.

The army’s spokesman said its forces had foiled planned attacks by IS on embassies and Islamabad airport, but denied the group was behind an August attack on a hospital that killed 73, as it had claimed.

Separately, gunmen on a motorcycle shot dead two coastguards and a civilian and wounded a shopkeeper in a remote southwest coastal town, local police station chief Chakar Baloch told AFP Monday.

The incident, also confirmed by provincial police chief Ahsan Mahboob, took place late Sunday in Pasni, around 650 km southwest of Quetta. A spokesman for the Baloch Liberation Army, Gend Baloch, later claimed responsibility for the attack in a phone call to news agency.