Mock security drills in restive Pakistani province

Record ID: 117125

  • Title: Mock security drills in restive Pakistani province
  • Date: 30th January 2016
  • Summary: PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN (JANUARY 29, 2016) (ORIGINALLY 4:3) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF ELIZABETH SECONDARY SCHOOL SECURITY GUARD STANDING OUTSIDE SCHOOL STUDENTS SITTING IN CLASS MAN PRETENDING TO BE SCHOOL ATTACKER HOLDING GUN, STANDING IN FRONT OF CHILDREN VARIOUS OF SPECIAL COMBAT UNIT (SCU) RUNNING INTO SCHOOL WITH GUNS RAISED AS PART OF MOCK DRILL VARIOUS OF SCU TAKING UP POSIT
  • Embargoed: 14th February 2016 14:20
  • Keywords: Pakistan security drills Peshawar Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif Lahore
  • Location: PESHAWAR AND LAHORE, PAKISTAN
  • City: PESHAWAR AND LAHORE, PAKISTAN
  • Country: Pakistan
  • Topics: Conflicts/War/Peace
  • Reuters ID: LVA001428R5FP
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: THIS EDIT CONTAINS MATERIAL WHICH WAS ORIGINALLY 4:3
    Pakistan carried out a series of mock drills in the north-western Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province on Friday (January 29) to combat possible militant attacks on educational institutions, after a deadly assault on a university last month.
    Armed militants stormed Bacha Khan University in Charsadda, KP on January 20, killing at least 20 people a little more than a year after the massacre of 134 students at a school in the area, officials said.
    A senior Pakistani Taliban commander claimed responsibility for the assault, but an official spokesman later denied involvement, calling the attack "un-Islamic".
    On Friday, police from the elite Special Combat Unit (SCU) performed mock drills in front of children, teachers and the media at a school in Peshawar, the scene of last year's devastating school attack.
    The SCU conducted two more security rehearsals at Peshawar's Judicial Complex and Judicial Colony, practising their responses to several types of attack.
    During the school exercise, heavily-armed police commandos showcased their skills, evacuating people from a building under attack, cordoning off the area safely and combating militants inside.
    Officials said they were going to various schools to show teachers and students how to respond to an attack.
    "We are carrying out these exercises in such a way that we first coordinate with the children and the teachers, so that the children do not get frightened, and also so that they gain confidence. In a way we are carrying out confidence-building measures side by side with the drill, so that the children become confident and they do not panic. In this way, teachers, students, the public and police will be able to give a combined and coordinated response (to any attack)," said the commander of the unit, Sanaullah Khan.
    More mock drill are planned for the coming days.
    Meanwhile, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, talking to reporters in Lahore on Saturday (January 30), said the militant threat in the country had diminished in recent years.
    "By the grace of Allah, we are not afraid. We were not even afraid when the bomb blasts were at their height when we came to power in 2013. Remember the situation in Pakistan at that time, what was happening in Karachi, what was happening in other parts of the country. The bomb blasts had become almost a daily affair. But now in the past two years or so, there has been a marked reduction in these things," he said.
    Pakistan has launched a major crackdown against militants holed up along its porous border with Afghanistan, but the university attack shows they retain the capacity to launch deadly raids, particularly against targets where security is relatively weak.
    The Pakistani Taliban commander who says his fighters were behind the Bacha Khan assault released a video last week vowing more attacks on schools.
    They are fighting to topple the government and install a strict interpretation of Islamic law. They are loosely allied with the Afghan Taliban who ruled most of Afghanistan until they were overthrown by U.S.-backed military action in 2001.
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