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ISLAMABAD: Around 700 army personnel have been killed in various militant attacks over the past two years, Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif said on Saturday, accusing India of supporting terror outfits in the country. 

Pakistan has witnessed a surge in militant attacks since November 2022 in its northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and southwestern Balochistan provinces bordering Iran and Afghanistan. In KP, the Pakistani Taliban or Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) outfit has carried out some of the deadliest attacks against law enforcers. 

In Balochistan, separatist ethnic Baloch militant groups demand independence from the state, accusing Islamabad of denying locals a share in the province’s mineral resources. Islamabad denies the allegations.

“In the past two years, 700 of our soldiers have been martyred,” Asif told lawmakers during a televised parliamentary session. “Our civilians have been martyred. Several districts of a province of ours are being targeted by terrorism.”

The minister said that militant outfits such as the TTP or the separatist Baloch Liberation Army are “agents of India,” alleging that they were fighting New Delhi’s war on Pakistani soil. 

“Any person who even has a speck of sympathy toward them is not a Pakistani,” Asif said, vowing that Islamabad would win its war against militancy. 

India and Pakistan have traded allegations of supporting militant groups for years. New Delhi blames Islamabad for supporting militant outfits who carry out attacks in Indian-administered Kashmir, an allegation that Pakistan has always rejected. 

The two countries engaged in a military confrontation for days last month after India attacked Pakistan with missiles, accusing it of supporting an April 22 attack in the Pahalgam tourist resort in Indian-administered Kashmir. 

Pakistan denied the allegations and called for an international, credible probe into the incident. 

The defense minister expressed solidarity with Iran over Israel’s recent attacks against it, vowing to extend support to the neighboring country.

“In this hour of trial, we are with them in every way,” Asif said. “Whatever help they need at the international level, at the United Nations or any other institution or at the Islamic conference, we will defend their interests there.”
 

ISLAMABAD: The OIC Ministerial Standing Committee on Scientific and Technological Cooperation (COMSTECH) is organizing an upcoming visit by a high-level delegation of Bangladeshi universities to Pakistan next week, the global body said this week, as it aims to enhance academic collaboration between the two countries.

The 10-member delegation will comprise vice-chancellors and senior officials from leading public and private sector universities of Bangladesh, COMSTECH said in a statement on Friday. The delegation is set to visit Pakistan from June 16 to 21.

The visit is being organized at COMSTECH’s invitation and is being facilitated by the Bangladesh High Commission in Islamabad, it said.

“The primary objective of the visit is to explore and enhance avenues of academic collaboration and institutional partnerships in the fields of higher education, science, and technology,” COMSTECH said in a press release.

“The delegation will participate in a series of high-level meetings, discussions, and interactive sessions with top Pakistani universities in Lahore and Islamabad.”

It said that these Pakistani institutions are members of COMSTECH’s Consortium of Excellence (CCoE), a collaborative network of premier universities dedicated to advancing scientific cooperation and educational excellence among OIC member states.

“This initiative reflects COMSTECH’s continued commitment to fostering inter-university cooperation and strengthening academic ties across the Muslim world, particularly between Bangladesh and Pakistan,” the statement concluded.

Ties between Pakistan and Bangladesh have improved recently. Once one nation, Bangladesh split from Pakistan after a brutal 1971 war with Dhaka drawing closer to Islamabad’s arch-rival New Delhi over the years.

However, long-time Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina was ousted in August 2024 after her government was overthrown by a student-led protest. She fled via helicopter to India, with Dhaka attempting to extradite her.

Relations between India and Bangladesh’s interim government have been frosty since then, allowing Islamabad and Dhaka to rebuild ties slowly.