By IANS,
Islamabad: A senior Pakistani Army officer, who was the head of the UN peacekeeping mission in Sudan, was gunned down along with another soldier Thursday, as the military stepped up its offensive against the Taliban in the restive northwest areas.
Brigadier Moinuddin Ahmed, who was former deputy director general military operations, was killed by gunmen who ambushed his jeep at 8.30 a.m., three days after twin blasts killed seven people in the International Islamic University campus here.
The attack by the armed men riding a motorcycle took place when the army jeep was passing through G-11 sector where senior army officials stay.
Eyewitnesses said the terrorists, aged between 22 to 25 years, managed to flee after carrying out the deadly ambush, Geo TV reported.
Television footage showed the jeep with around a dozen bullet holes in its windscreen.
A police official said Brigadier Ahmed was visiting Pakistan and was expected to return to Sudan at the UN mission Friday.
A short while after the ambush, there was panic in the district court premises in sector F-8 when some people claimed they heard gunshots.
Police sources said the bomb disposal squad and the Elite Force cleared the area after a thorough search.
An earlier media report had said that a suicide bomber wearing a blanket reached the court Thursday. But there was no confirmation.
More than 160 people have been killed in the latest wave of militant violence, which started with a suicide bombing at the offices of the United Nations World Food Programme in Islamabad Oct 5. Five employees of the agency were killed.
The most audacious attack came on Oct 10 when 10 terrorists in military uniform laid siege to the Pakistan Army’s General Headquarters in Rawalpindi. At least 19 people, including nine raiders, died in the 22-hour standoff. One militant was arrested.
On Oct 15, gunmen wearing suicide vests storming two police academies and the offices of Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency in the eastern city of Lahore. A car bomber struck a police station in the northwestern town of Kohat. In all, at least 38 people including 11 insurgents were killed on a single day.