Pakistan Taliban murder 9 tourists

LAHORE - Gunmen dressed as police killed nine foreign tourists in an unprecedented attack claimed by the Taliban at a remote camp in the Pakistani Himalayas, embarrassing the new government just weeks after it took office.

Members of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), seen in a photo at a Pakistani TV website last year.

The attackers struck at the foot of one of the world's highest mountains, killing Chinese and Ukrainian climbers in an area of the far-flung north not previously associated with violence or Islamist militancy.

The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility, saying it had set up a new faction to kill foreigners to avenge US drone strikes after its second in command was killed in the northwestern tribal belt on the Afghan border.

The deaths call into question the future in Pakistan of foreign mountaineering and trekking expeditions, which provide the last vestige of international tourism in a country on the frontline of Al-Qaeda and Taliban violence.

Officials said nine foreigners, including five Ukrainians and a number of Chinese were killed. One Pakistani also died and one Chinese survivor has been recovered.

The climbers were staying at a base camp for Nanga Parbat, which at 8,126 metres is the second highest mountain in Pakistan and the ninth highest in the world.

The base camp is at Fairy Meadows in the Diamer district of Gilgit-Baltistan, which borders China and Kashmir.

"The incident took place around 10:00 pm (midnight Thailand time, 1700 GMT Saturday). They were mountaineers," Diamer police official Mohammed Naveed said.

"Gunmen came and opened fire on them. It is confirmed that they have been killed," he said.

Five Ukrainians were among the dead, Ukraine's ambassador to Pakistan Vladimir Lakomov confirmed.

"Militants surrounded a tent camping site around the mountain Nanga Parbat and shot dead people who were in it," Lakomov said.

The Himalayas in northern Pakistan offer some of the most spectacular climbing in the world. Its peaks are a magnet for experienced mountaineers, often from Europe.

Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar said the attackers were dressed as Gilgit Scouts, a paramilitary police unit.

"They abducted two guides and through them reached the area. One guide was killed in the shoot-out. One is alive. He is now detained and being questioned," he said.

Pakistan condemned the attack, but the killings will raise serious questions about security failures and embarrass a country already suffering from a poor image.

The interior minister conceded there was no security escort for foreigners in that area of the mountains.

The top bureaucrat and top police official in Gilgit-Baltistan were on Sunday suspended, state TV said.

Helicopters were dispatched to recover the bodies, and police and paramilitary were ordered into the area, officials said.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned "these inhuman and cruel acts", ordered a thorough investigation and for the culprits to be brought to justice, the government said.

Officials also spoke to the Chinese and Ukrainian ambassadors to express their condolences, the foreign ministry added.

"Those who have committed this heinous crime seem to be attempting to disrupt the growing relations of Pakistan with China and other friendly countries," it said.

While Gilgit-Baltistan has seen deadly sectarian violence targeting Pakistan's Shiite Muslim minority, foreigners have never before been targeted in such a remote part of the region, which officials said was inaccessible by road.

A spokesman for Pakistan's main umbrella Taliban faction, which is waging a seven-year domestic insurgency, initially refused to comment, but later telephoned AFP to claim responsibility.

"One of our factions, Junood ul-Hifsa, did it. It is to avenge the killing of Maulvi Wali ur-Rehman," said spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan.

Rehman died on May 29 in a US drone attack on a house in North Waziristan, the most notorious Taliban and Al-Qaeda stronghold in Pakistan on the Afghan border.

Ehsan told AFP that Junood ul-Hifsa was a new wing set up by the Taliban "to attack foreigners and convey a message to the world against drone strikes".

The TTP, a nebulous collection of factions, has been waging a domestic insurgency since July 2007 but is not previously known to have a presence in Gilgit.

Rehman, who had a $5 million bounty on his head, was accused by Washington of organising attacks against US and NATO forces in Afghanistan and wanted in connection with a suicide attack on an American base in Afghanistan in 2009 that killed seven CIA agents.

Pakistan's government, which took office this month after historic elections, faces a massive array of problems related to a moribund economy and Islamist militancy.

Sharif has previously advocated peace talks with the Taliban and he criticised the US drone strike that killed Rehman, echoing long-held Pakistani complaints that the US campaign violates national sovereignty.