The party called it an “attack on the Pashtun movement”, adding that more than a thousand workers have been murdered since 2009 when its government in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa demanded an operation against Maulana Fazlullah-led militants in Swat. The party lost three MPAs, including senior minister Bashir Ahmed Bilour, during subsequent attacks. On Saturday, the ANP’s head, Asfandyar Wali, said they would launch a sit-in campaign from Swabi against the target killing of its workers on August 28.
“Despite serious threats the ANP has remained firmly on the ground and on the forefront of the struggle against terrorism,” said Bushra Gohar, the party’s senior vice-president and an intellectual. “It is not surprising that the Taliban and their supporters see the ANP as a strong force to contend with and continue to target its leaders and members.” She said that ANP owns the struggle for peace and is therefore the main target of anti-peace and pro-Taliban forces.
Shoaib Khan was gunned down by what the official spokesperson of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Muhammad Khurasani, said was a “special squad”. The men entered his hujra in Yar Hussain and opened fire on him.
The party has not just been paying a price for what Bushra Gohar calls its “well-articulated position nationally and internationally against terrorism”. The ANP has been run into the ground in Karachi where they were systematically targeted. “We lost more than 100 workers in West Karachi alone,” says the party’s Abdul Malik Achakzai.
It is not just the ANP that are in their sights. Militants have also declared war on the Pakistan Peoples Party, Mutahida Qaumi Movement, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and other political parties. But the Pashtun nationalist party has stayed a prime target. The ANP’s rallies were attacked before the general elections in 2013 with Hakimullah Mehsud, the slain head of the TTP, stating at the time that as a “democratic, secular” system was close to being formed, the ANP members were fair game as they were “communists”. A splinter TTP group, the Jamat-ul-Ahrar went one step further by declaring that all political parties could be targeted. Its leader Ihsanullah Ihsan said that for them “all political parties are the same”. They used to spare those who sat in opposition to the government but since all of them approved the National Action Plan the “Taliban are targeting all politicians when they came in [their] reach”.
Tahir Ali is a Peshawar-based writer
@tahirafghan
TIMELINE of attacks on peace committee and ANP members
Feb 2009: MPA Alamzeb Khan in Peshawar
Dec 2009: ANP MPA Shamsher Ali Khan in Swat
April 2010: ANP’s Sher Muhammad Khan in Timargarah, Lower Dir
July 2010: Mian Arshad Hussain, the son of Mian Iftikhar Hussain then KP information minister
Jan 2011: ANP’s Jehar Khan Hoti in Mardan
May 2011: ANP’s Muzaffar Ali Khan in Matta tehsil, Swat
June 2011: ANP’s Israel Khan in Bannu
Dec 2011: 8 wounded at ANP chief Asfandyar’s rally in Charsadda
July 2012: ANP’s Malak Qasim Khan & five activists in Balochistan’s Kachlak bazaar.
July 2012: ANP’s Fatih Khan & three guards in Buner
Feb 2013: CM Amir Haider Khan Hoti survives suicide attempt in Mardan
April 2013: 10 ANP workers killed as meeting attacked
May 31, 2013: Peace committee member, Najeeb Khan, in Peshawar’s Budh Berh
Sept 1, 2013: Akbar Ali, member peace committee, Qaumi Watan Party, in Durshkhela, Swat
Sept 16, 2013: Dr Rehman Ghani, peace committee member, in Takhta Band, Swat
Feb 12, 2014: 9 people, including children and women, killed in attack on homes of Mukhtiar and Israr, peace committee members in Mashoo Khel, Budh Berh
Sept 15, 2014: Malik Zahir Shah, head of peace committee of Gul Jabba village of Kabal
Sept 15, 2014: Peace committee members, Muhammad Zaib Khan and Fareed Khan, in Bara Bandai, Kabal
Oct 2014: ANP’s Muhammad Ashraf Khan in Matta, Swat
August 21, 2015: Rahman Wali, a member of Doog Darra Amn Lashkar, upper Dir
Sept 11, 2015: Peace committee leader, Dilawar Khan, in Soripao, Maidan tehsil, lower Dir
Nov 2015: ANP’s Imdad Hussain Jafri in Yakatot, Peshawar
April 2016: ANP’s Syed Jamshed Ali in Manglore, Swat
May 18, 2016: Peace committee founder in Badhabar, former deputy speaker, Khushdil Khan’s home attacked
July 18 2016: Anti-Taliban ANP ex-MPA Muhammad Shoaib in Swabi
July 18 2016: 1 peace committee member & 6 others on their way to Sheringal from Dogdara, Upper Dir