Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain told the K-P Assembly on Tuesday that four of the Peshawar airport attackers were Pakistanis, three were Chechens, one Kyrgyz, one Uzbek and one from Dagestan.
Speaking at the floor of the assembly, Hussain said that body parts of the attackers have been sent for DNA tests. He added that militants are using their trainers for attacks, which meant that now their local ranks have been eliminated and they are on the verge of collapse.
The minister said that the ‘demonic’ tattoo on one of the attackers’ body reinforced their ‘devilish’ acts of targeting mosques and innocent children.
Meanwhile, Hussain told reporters outside the K-P Assembly that it was for the first time that militants used rocket launchers to pave their way and if they had succeeded in doing so, they would have been followed by others, adding that it would have taken 10 to 12 days to clear the area.
He also said that the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) were operating in close coordination.
Hussain also took back his initial statement that one terrorist was caught by security agencies, saying, instead, that all 10 terrorists were killed in the operation. He also said that since the militants were mostly foreigners, it suggested the involvement of foreign money and an ‘international agenda’.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 19th, 2012.