PESHAWAR: Intelligence agencies issued 316 specific threat alerts to law enforcement agencies across the province in the year 2014, of which 16—including the brazen Army Public School attack—materialized.
According to an analysis on terrorism in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa for 2014 carried out by the police and available with The Express Tribune, threats which materialized include the attack on APS, Tehreek-e-Taliban’s attack on Yakatoot police ASI Rafiq Khan, attack on security forces at Bannu Tochi Bridge, attack on FC Brigadier Khalid Mehmood in Peshawar, threats of attacks on cinemas, Kharkhano market, on lady health visitor Nazia Bibi, polio supervisor in Shabqadar and many others.
Threats in Charsadda resulted in attacks on gas pipelines, high-voltage transmission towers and schools, while the threat of an attack on PIA airlines materialized within 10 days.
“Law enforcement agencies received threats on almost a daily basis, of which a majority did not materialize, but these 16 specific threats did materialize with deadly accuracy,” a police official told The Express Tribune. He added the other plans failed because of precautionary measures taken by law enforcement agencies.
“It is still worrisome that law enforcement agencies failed completely to ward off some of the attacks like the one on Army Public School, the deadliest of its kind in the history of the country.”
Published in The Express Tribune, February 22nd, 2015.