Hazara Community Assaults
ISLAMABAD: A civilian agency, the Intelligence Bureau, has finally apprehended a militant responsible for the deaths of over 40 members of the Hazara community, including a dozen coal miners in the Mach attack, which he masterminded and was claimed by Daesh.
The militant, Abdul Bari, had been on security agencies’ watchlists since January 2021 when he and his associates slaughtered 11 coal miners of the Hazara community in a ruthless attack.
This incident led to a six-day protest by the Hazara community, with the bodies of the victims left on display at the Western Bypass in Quetta until then-Prime Minister Imran Khan visited them.
The massacre occurred near Mach, near the Afghanistan border, where armed militants kidnapped the miners from their homes and took them to nearby mountains.
Video footage from the scene depicted victims’ bodies scattered in a hut with their hands bound. The Intelligence Bureau had been tracking Abdul Bari’s movements in Afghanistan, waiting for him to return to Pakistan.
Abdul Bari’s involvement in terrorism and sectarian violence began during his early years when he attended various seminaries in Karachi and Rahim Yar Khan. He had a ten-year association with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Afghanistan, receiving training in Afghanistan.
Abdul Bari also orchestrated the attack on the Abdullah Shah Ghazi Mazar in October 2010, surveilled an Imam bargah in Saddar, Karachi, and conducted twin suicide blasts at the Abdullah Shah Ghazi Mazar. Additionally, in April 2013, he and three associates ambushed a shoe-making store in Quetta, killing six Hazaras and injuring three others.
After joining Daesh in 2016, Abdul Bari collected charity from drug traffickers and well-off individuals, using the Taliban’s name in Helmand, Afghanistan, and Chagai, Balochistan.
He provided the collected funds to his Daesh associates for their activities in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. Abdul Bari partially sourced the finances for the December 2017 attack on a Methodist Church in Quetta, which killed nine and injured 56, through his charity collection.
