IS Claims Deadly Police Center Attack in SW Pakistan

Islamabad — The Islamic State (IS) on Tuesday claimed a deadly attack at a police training center in Pakistan’s southwest Quetta city on Monday night, local media reported.

The IS’ Amaq news agency claimed that they sent three men to attack the cadets at the hostel of Sariab Road police training center, located some 20 km away from downtown Quetta, the capital city of the country’s southwest Balochistan province, according to the News.

The Amaq agency also posted a picture of three men carrying Kalashnikovs and wearing suicide jackets on its website, saying that the attack was carried out by IS’ Khorasan province.

The mouthpiece said that the militants “used machine guns and grenades, and then blew up their explosive vests in the crowd.”

Earlier talking to media, Major General Sher Afgan, chief of paramilitary troops Frontier Corps, said that the militants belonged to banned outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi al-Almi and were getting instructions from their handlers in Afghanistan.

The group, however, did not take credit for the attack.

The attack, which was carried out at about 11:05 p.m. local time Monday night, left 60 people killed and 117 others injured.

This is the second time when IS claimed terrorist attack in Quetta since the beginning of this year.

Earlier in August, the group took credit for an attack on a gathering of lawyers at a hospital in Quetta that left 70 people killed and over 100 injured.

The attack was also claimed by Pakistani Taliban faction Jamaat-ur-Ahrar. (PNA/Xinhua) JMC/EDS