The bullet-riddled bodies of an anti-Taliban militia commander and three of his associates were dumped in Pakistan’s northwestern city of Peshawar on Wednesday, police said.
The bodies of Fahim-ud-Din, 50, chief of a 1,500-strong vigilante force in Bazidkhel on the outskirts of Peshawar, and three of his associates were found in a Toyota Land Cruiser on the city’s ring road. “We found the bodies around 7:00 a.m. Four of them had been shot at close range,” said Asif Iqbal, a senior police official.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility. According to police, relatives had not heard from Din since Tuesday when he went to Islamabad for work.
Police said Din had survived at least three suicide bombings and several roadside bomb attacks blamed on the Taliban and warlord Mangal Bagh, the leader of the Lashkar-e-Islam militia from the adjoining Khyber tribal district.
On June 12, two of Din’s bodyguards were killed in a suicide attack that targeted his vehicle. Din survived because he had not been in the car.
Pakistan is on the frontline of the U.S.-led war on Al Qaeda. Since July 2007, a Taliban-led insurgency has been fighting against the U.S.-allied government. In the last five years, attacks blamed on Islamist bombers have killed more than 5,000 people according to estimates. Pakistan says 35,000 of its people have been killed as a result of terrorism in the country since the 9/11 attacks on the United States.
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