Former Taliban commander Ehsanullah Ehsan, in a statement, has claimed that Friday’s suicide bombing at a Shia mosque in Peshawar, Pakistan, in which at least 56 people lost their lives was carried out by groups that are working on the direction of Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) Directorate.
As per Ehsan, Friday’s blast will be used by the ISI to attract the attention of the world leaders to the “danger” posed by terror organization Islamic State (IS) which, as per Ehsan, will take the responsibility for Friday’s blast and is likely to attempt a similar blast against the visiting Australian cricket team. According to his statement that was released minutes after the blast at the mosque, a similar suicide blast on the visiting Australian cricket team was “imminent”.
“As far as I know, the Australian cricket team is facing serious security threats and will face a major attack before the tour is over. The nature of this threat is greater than the threat to the New Zealand cricket team (referring to the September 2021 Pakistan tour of New Zealand which was abandoned before a ball being bowled due to imminent threat of a terror attack by the Islamic State),” Ehsan wrote in the statement that was shared with journalists.
The Australian team arrived in Pakistan on 4 March and as per their tour plan they will play 3 Test matches, 3 One Day Internationals and one T-20 Match in Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi. The two teams were playing their first test match at Rawalpindi, when the blast took place in Peshawar, less than 200 km away. Ehsan, who after surrendering to the Pakistan army some years ago, had fled from their safe house where he was kept for a considerable period of time.
While speaking to The Daily Guardian from an undisclosed location, Ehsan said the Peshawar attack and the attack on the Australian cricket team (in the situation it is carried out) will be put on the Islamic State.
“The objective of the Pakistani intelligence agency is to bring into existence a source of dollars for them and for this they need to present the Islamic State as a global threat so that the Western countries will give them aid and money to fight the Islamic State (IS). As per my information, presenting the IS as a global threat has already started and apart from retired army generals, few media anchors will be propagating the threat of IS,” he said. As per Ehsan, members of the security details of the visiting New Zealand cricket team had contacted him through a journalist to verify his claims of an imminent terror attack on the team by IS suicide bomber. After being convinced by his responses to their queries which were in the form of five questions, as per Ehsan, the New Zealand cricket team left Pakistan within 24 hours.