Gunmen kill at least 59 Pakistani police cadets during academy raid
At least 59 Pakistani police cadets and trainers have been killed and more than 100 others wounded after militants attacked a police college in the restive Balochistan province.
The Takfiri Daesh group on Tuesday claimed responsibility for the overnight attack in Quetta after authorities said the attackers belonged to a militant group affiliated with the Pakistani Taliban.
It was one of the deadliest attacks on Pakistan's security forces in recent years, sparking a ferocious gunbattle with troops that lasted into early hours Tuesday.
According to security officials, the attackers were killed following a four-long-hour siege. Officials said all three assailants were wearing explosive vests while they entered the facility.
"I saw three men in camouflage whose faces were hidden carrying Kalashnikovs," one cadet told reporters. "They started firing and entered the dormitory but I managed to escape over a wall," he added.
Hundreds of cadets were evacuated from the center when troops arrived to repel the attack.
Chief of the paramilitary Frontier Corps in Balochistan Major General Sher Afgan who led the counter-operation said communications intercepts showed militants linked to the Pakistani Taliban were behind the attack.
"They were in communication with operatives in Afghanistan," he said, noting that the group itself has not claimed responsibility for the attack.
Daesh, however, said the attack was carried out by its "fighters", according to the group's Amaq news agency.
In August, Daesh claimed responsibility for an attack on a gathering of mourners at a hospital in Quetta that killed 70 people but that attack was also claimed by Pakistani Taliban faction, Jamaat-ur-Ahrar.
Provincial Home Minister Sarfaraz Bugti noted that two of the attacker died after the detonated their explosives while the third was killed by security forces, adding that most of the casualties were the result of blasts.
Pakistan has been battling al-Qaeda-linked terrorists and pro-Taliban militants for years, especially after the US-led invasion in neighboring Afghanistan in 2001 and the subsequent spillover of militancy into the region.
In June 2014, the Pakistani army intensified its anti-militancy efforts by deploying some 30,000 troops near the border with Afghanistan to wipe out militant bases in the tribal area and bring an end to the bloody militancy.
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