Dera Ismail Khan: A sit-in by police in the northwestern Pakistani district of Lakki Marwat entered a third day, police said on Wednesday, as protesters demanded the military withdraw from the region and hand over “full powers” to civilian law enforcers.

The Pakistan army has a heavy presence in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, where it has been battling militants from the Al-Qaeda, Pakistani Taliban and other groups for nearly two decades. 

There have been protests in several districts of KP since July, when Pakistan’s cabinet announced that a new military operation would be launched amid a surge in terror attacks across the country. People in the northwestern region have rejected plans for an armed operation and demand that civilian agencies like the provincial police and the counter-terrorism department be better equipped. 

“Lakki Marwat police sit-in protest against Pakistani army continues for the third day in intense heat at Taja Chowk,” district police said in a statement to media, saying the Peshawar-Karachi Indus Highway had been completely closed for all types of vehicular traffic for 72 hours. 

“Police only have one demand and a one point agenda that the army should withdraw from the district and police should be given back their full powers.”

The sit-in by policemen, who have been joined by representatives of civil society and political parties as well as tribal elders and members of the public, comes days after unidentified gunmen attacked a police van in Lakki Marwat, killing an officer. Two brothers of a serving police man in Lakki Marwat were also gunned down last week. Similar protests were also held in KP’s Bannu district in July. 

Pakistan has seen a rise in militant attacks in recent weeks, with many of them taking place in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where groups like the outlawed Pakistani Taliban, or TTP, have stepped up attacks, daily targeting security forces convoys and check posts, and carrying out targeted killings and kidnappings of law enforcers and government officials.

At least 75 policemen have been killed in ambushes and target killings in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2024, according to police data. 

The volatile Lakki Marwat district is located on the edge of Pakistan’s restive tribal regions that border Afghanistan, from where Islamabad says militants mainly associated with the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan frequently launch attacks, targeting police and other security forces. Islamabad has even blamed Kabul’s Afghan Taliban rulers of facilitating anti-Pakistan militants. Kabul denies the charges.

GENEVA: In a move by the IOC that apparently could block Sebastian Coe as an expected presidential candidate, the Olympic governing body has clarified its complex election rules before a deadline Sunday to enter the race.
A letter seen Wednesday by the Associated Press was sent by the International Olympic Committee’s ethics commission to the 111 members, including Coe and several more likely candidates in the contest to succeed Thomas Bach next year.
Details in the two-page letter dated Monday specified reasons why the likes of Coe, the 67-year-old president of track governing body World Athletics, would seem ineligible to complete a full first IOC mandate of eight years.
The winning candidate must be a member of the IOC on election day, scheduled for March in Greece, “and during the entire duration of their term as IOC President,” the letter stated.
Coe’s IOC membership is conditional on being president of World Athletics, a role he must leave in 2027 on completing the maximum 12 years in office.
Another expected candidate, IOC vice president Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr., who turns 65 in November, also could have legal issues with the standard age limit of 70 for members defined in the Olympic Charter rules book.
The charter “makes no exceptions for the president, who is an IOC member under the same conditions as all the other members,” stated ethics commission chairman Ban Ki Moon, the former United Nations secretary general, who signed the Sept. 9 letter.
Coe is widely considered a most qualified candidate to next lead the IOC. A two-time Olympic champion in the men’s 1,500 meters, he was later an elected lawmaker in Britain’s parliament, led the 2012 London Olympics organizing committee and has presided at World Athletics for nine years.
The legal hurdles are stacking up just days before the IOC-set deadline for candidates to send a letter of intent to Bach, who will leave as president next year after reaching his 12-year term limit.
Kirsty Coventry, an Olympic gold medalist swimmer who is sports minister of Zimbabwe, and David Lappartient, the French president of cycling’s governing body, have had support from Bach in recent years.
Other candidates could include two of the four IOC vice presidents — Nicole Hoevertsz of Aruba and Spaniard Samaranch, whose father was IOC president for 21 years until leaving in 2001.
Prince Feisal al Hussein of Jordan is a potential candidate who could be the first president in the IOC’s 130-year history from Asia or Africa.