Involvement of Afghans in Dera Ismail Khan suicide attack raises tensions with Pakistan

The recent Tehreek Jihad Pakistan attack in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province raises tensions between the Afghan Taliban and Pakistan as evidence of Afghans’ involvement emerges.

A view of Babe Dera in Dera Ismail Khan Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pakistan | Credit: Asad ASAd, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons (via Afghan Witness)

Tehreek Jihad Pakistan (TJP) has claimed responsibility for a devastating attack involving four suicide bombers that targeted an operational camp of security forces at the Daraban Police Station in the Dera Ismail District in the north-western Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan on 12 December 2023.

The attack, which included a VBIED attack on the main gate, is one of the deadliest suicide attacks on the army in Pakistan's history, with 23 soldiers reported killed and over 30 injured.

A statement from TJP, widely described in Pakistani media as affiliated to the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), claimed the four suicide bombers were local to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, naming them as Maulvi Hasan Gandapur from Dera Ismail Khan district, Maulvi Obaidullah from Mardan, Mullah Muhammad Jameel from Lakki Marwat, and Maulvi Siddiq Ullah from Swat districts.

However, video and audio content surfacing on social media appeared to contradict these claims, and independent Afghan media accounts quickly reported that Gandapur was in fact an Afghan from Musa Qila district of Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, and his real name was Qari Shakir.

Read the full report here.