Patterns of Global Terrorism 1997 - Pakistan

In November four US employees of Union Texas Petroleum and their Pakistani driver were murdered in Karachi when the vehicle in which they were traveling was attacked 1 mile from the US Consulate in Karachi. Shortly after the incident, two separate claims of responsibility for the killings were made: the Aimal Khufia Action Committee – a previously unknown group – and the Islami Inqilabi Mahaz, a Lahore-based group of Afghan veterans. Both groups cited as the motive for the attack the conviction of Mir Aimal Kansi, a Pakistani national who was tried in the United States in November for the murder of two CIA employees and the wounding of three others outside CIA Headquarters in 1993. Kansi was found guilty and sentenced to death.

Deadly incidents of sectarian violence, particularly in Punjab Province, surged in 1997. According to press reports, 200 people died during the year. In addition, five Iranian Air Force technicians were killed in September in Rawalpindi. Lashkar i-Jhangvi, a violent offshoot of the anti-Shiite Sunni group Sipah i Shahaba Pakistan, claimed responsibility. The Iranian Government-controlled press holds Pakistan responsible for failing to stop the attack and accused the United States of conspiring in the murders.

The United States designated the HUA a foreign terrorist organization in October. This group is responsible for the still unresolved July 1995 kidnapping of six Westerners in Kashmir; one of the six, a US citizen, managed to escape, but a Norwegian hostage was killed in August 1995.

Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, who was extradited from Pakistan to the United States in 1995, was convicted in New York in November for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York City.