Salafi-Jihadi Movement Update Special Edition: Protests in Pakistan, May 10, 2023
May 10, 2023 - ISW PressThe crisis resulting from the arrest of former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and the eruption of violent protests against the Pakistani military is deepening. Hostility between Khan’s Tehrik-e-Insaf Party (PTI) and the Pakistani military is causing PTI protesters to deliberately target military and police infrastructure across Pakistan. Demonstrators set fire to multiple police stations in Islamabad and exchanged small arms fire with Pakistani security forces outside the Frontier Corps’ headquarters in Peshawar on May 10. Relations between Imran Khan and the Pakistani military have deteriorated since at least late 2021 when Imran Khan refused to approve senior Pakistani military appointments. Khan claimed that the Pakistani military and United States helped to remove him from office after an April 2022 vote of no-confidence, and separately accused Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence Major General Faisal Naseer of an assassination attempt against Khan in November 2022. PTI supporters burned down Naseer’s home on May 10.