The Islamic State terror group claimed responsibility Tuesday for a massacre at a police training center in southwestern Pakistan that left 59 dead — but a breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban claimed its fighters launched the attack.
(FOX)- Pakistani officials feared the death toll could rise further, as the four-hours-long siege — one of the deadliest attacks on Pakistan’s security forces in recent years — left 117 wounded, some of them in critical condition.
Most of the dead were police cadets and recruits. The initial attack led to a ferocious gunbattle with troops that lasted from Monday night into the early hours Tuesday.
The assault caught many of the recruits asleep in their dorms and forced cadets and trainers to jump off rooftops and run for their lives to escape the attackers.
ISIS, which is waging war in Syria and Iraq where it has declared a self-styled caliphate, posted a claim on the group’s media arm, the Arabic-language Aamaq news agency. It said three ISIS fighters killed 60 police recruits in Quetta but the claim was not confirmed by Pakistani officials and ISIS did not offer any previously unknown details about the assault.
Some of the army personnel who responded to the assault were also among those killed, said Shahzada Farhat, police spokesman in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province.
The attack in Quetta began at 11:30 p.m. on Monday, said Baluchistan Home Minister Sarfraz Bugti, with the militants shooting and killing a police guard at the watch tower before storming into the academy, located on the outskirts of Quetta.
Baluchistan officials had earlier received “intelligence reports that some terrorists have entered the province” but had no indications about possible targets.