Sindh Timeline- 2008

Month/Date	Incidents
January 14	11 persons, including two children, were killed and more than 50 persons wounded in a bomb blast in the industrial Landhi suburbs of Gul Ahmadpur in Karachi. "The bomb was planted on a motorbike and exploded outside a textile factory in the Landhi district of Karachi," said senior police official Mohammed Javed. Muneer Ahmed Sheikh, an official of the Bomb Disposal Squad, said the explosion had been caused by a homemade time bomb which contained nails and ball bearings.
January 16	The Hyderabad police arrested three suspected suicide bombers from the city. Police sources said that the three men belonged to Swabi district in the NWFP, and could possibly be suicide bombers. The suspects were between 15 to 17 years of age and were planning to carry out subversive activities at the time of arrest.
January 22	Security agencies arrested five suspected militants in several raids in Karachi. Jahangir Bhatti, a suspected militant who had just arrived from Saudi Arabia, was arrested at the Karachi International Airport and shifted to an undisclosed location. Yousaf Mehsud, a close aide of Baitullah Mehsud — arrested on January 21 in Sohrab Goth Police Station precincts — reportedly provided the information about Bhattiti’s arrival. Police personnel also raided the house of Aitzaz Shah, the 15-year old suspect arrested in the Benazir Bhutto assassination case, in the Pirabad area and arrested his father Zahir Shah and uncle Zohaib Shah. They later raided a madrassa (seminary) at Old Golimar where Aitzaz Shah used to study before leaving for Afghanistan, and arrested two suspected militants.
January 29	At least seven militants of the Jundullah group and two police officials, including a Deputy Superintendent, were killed in two encounters in the Landhi and Shah Latif Town areas of Karachi. One of the slain militants was identified as Qasim Toori, a 27-year-old former policeman, who was wanted for a June 2004 attack on the then Karachi Corps Commander in which 11 people were killed. Five people were arrested including a man believed to be from Uzbekistan. The militants who were killed in Sector 89 of the Landhi area had earlier escaped during a police raid on a house behind the Bin Qasim Police Station during which an exchange of fire also took place. Since a police message had already been sent out about an encounter in Shah Latif Town, a police party of Landhi Police Station also set out towards Shah Latif Town and while it was on way, it intercepted the car of fleeing militants near a petrol pump in Sector 89 of Landhi. While the militants were killed and two police personnel injured in the encounter at Landhi, two police personnel were killed in the encounter at Shah Latif Town. Police said at the house they found a huge cache of rocket-propelled grenades, rocket launchers, submachine guns, 25 kilograms of explosives and a bag of ball bearings, which are often used for suicide bombings.
February 4	Unidentified gunmen opened fire on a Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) election rally in Karachi, wounding one person. 600 suicide bombers are present in Karachi and they are planning a major attack, revealed two militants Qasim Toori and Danish alias Talha during interrogation by security agencies. Most of the suicide bombers are reportedly former students of Islamabad’s Lal Masjid. The militants confessed, "Around 600 Jundullah militants are present in Karachi. They are mentally prepared and trained to commit suicide attacks." They also confessed that they had robbed foreign banks and dispatched the money to their headquarters in Wana in South Waziristan, from where their needs for weapons, explosives and other necessities were being met.
February 15	The Karachi Police arrested 10 members of a militant organisation linked to the Taliban who were planning massive terrorist attacks in the city during the elections. Addressing a press conference, the Inspector General of Police Azhar Ali Farooqi said the militant outfit, Tehrik-i-Islami Lashkar-i-Muhammadi, had ties with Mullah Dadullah, Taliban commander Tahir and Sirajul Haq Haqqani. He said the group was planning attacks on political and religious leaders and philanthropists, adding that it had also obtained lists of members of the Rotary and Lions clubs and Theosophical Society. Farooqi disclosed that the arrested men were formerly members of other banned outfits, like the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM), but after the Lal Masjid operation they formed a group of their own because their former organisations had ‘deviated’ from their mission.
February 17	A man, Gul Mohammad Bugti, was killed and four others were wounded when their jeep hit a landmine in the Bhittai Colony police station’s jurisdiction near Tangwani in Sukkur. The Karachi Police arrested six members of the Hizbut Tehrir while they were pasting posters near Shahra-e-Qaideen. Geo News stated that the police arrested Ghulam Ali, Rizwan Ali, Abdul Samad, Talha, Shirafat Ali and Muhammad Sajid, and recovered a large number of posters from their possession. According to the police, the posters read: "Change cannot come with the present democracy and the enforcement of Caliphate is essential for bringing about a change."
February 19	In Sindh, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) won 65 seats out of 125, while the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) got 38 and nine seats, respectively. The Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N) failed to win a single seat while one independent candidate was successful.
February 26	Three members of a militant group have been arrested by police for killing seven Christians in the office of the Idara Amn-o-Insaf, a Christian charity organisation, on September 25, 2002. Acting on the basis of information extracted during the interrogation of 10 activists of the Tehreek-i-Islami and Lashkar-i-Muhammadi recently arrested by police, the CID arrested the three alleged militants in Akhtar Colony. The three suspects were identified as Zubairuddin alias Sharjeel, Asif alias Pasha and Mohammad Atif.
February 29	The banned Sunni group Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) reportedly drew several hundred supporters near its headquarters in Karachi as it denounced the blasphemous caricatures of the holy Prophet published in some Danish newspapers, and declared jihad against Denmark and the West if they continued to insult Islam. It was the fist major public rally by the SSP since it was banned in 2001. The SSP's protest took place after Friday prayers at the SSP headquarters at Masjid-e-Siddique Akbar in the Nagan Chowrangi area.
March 19	The Karachi Police arrested Mohammad Kashif, an Intermediate student allegedly linked to the Taliban. Police also claimed that he was a member of the HuMA. He was arrested during a raid in Landhi and the police claimed to have recovered weapons and equipment used to seal arms licenses. Kashif reportedly stated that he went to Sialkot in Punjab province a while ago with some friends, became "impressed" with their love for jihad and then decided to go for "jihad training" over there.
March 27	Two officers of the Intelligence Bureau believed to be involved in anti-Al Qaeda operations were shot dead on a busy street near Regal Chowk in Karachi. Tahir Naveed, a police officer, stated that it was apparently a case of targeted killing.
April 25	Various defunct sectarian and militant groups have started re-emerging in the country, especially in Karachi, after remaining underground for the past several years. Activists of some sectarian groups had carried out wall-chalking, hoisted outfit flags and displayed posters to inform the public about their activities, including gatherings in mosques in Karachi. The channel also quoted sources in banned militant outfits as saying that these organisations were active under new names and venues, adding that they had recently held large rallies in Karachi. According to the channel, jihadi groups like the HuM, HM and Al-Badr have established new offices.