Shah Hassan Khel
| Shah Hassan Khel | |
|---|---|
| Village | |
 Shah Hassan Khel
|
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| Coordinates: 32°25′54″N 70°57′56″E / 32.43167°N 70.96556°ECoordinates: 32°25′54″N 70°57′56″E / 32.43167°N 70.96556°E | |
| Country |
 Pakistan
|
| Region | Khyber Pakhtunkhwa |
| District | Lakki Marwat District |
| Population (2011) | |
| • Total | 4,000 (approx.) |
| Time zone | PST (UTC+5) |
Shah Hassan Khel is a village to the south of Lakki Marwat, in the Lakki Marwat District, on the Lakki Marwat Road between Lakki Marwat and Shahbaz Khel, Punjab. In 2011, it had some 4,000 inhabitants in about 500 households. The village is located between two streams which lead down from a southern tributary of the . The area to the south is mountainous, known as the Sheikh Budin Range. A troubled area with the Taliban since around 2007, in 2010 a terrorist attack took place here killing at least 97 people and wounding some 40 others.
Historically, Shah Hassan Khel was a village unit of the tehsil of Marwat. Administratively it bordered the village units of Ahmed Khel to the north, Abdul Khel to the southwest, and the southwestern part of Chowki Jand to the south and southeast. In 1992, Marwat tehsil became a part of Lakki Marwat District. The neighbouring villages of Ahmed Khel and Abdul Khel constitute official union councils of the district today.
The first mentions of trouble with the Taliban in the region of Shah Hassan Khel date from early 2007, with extremists taking six hostages at a marriage party and beating up a group of singers. After the 2007 Siege of Lal Masjid, Taliban militants took first control of the Shah Hassan Khel mosque, and soon of the whole village. When Pakistan security forces tried to expunge the militants from the village in the summer of 2009, the village became a ghost town for three months, with all villagers fleeing to other villages close by. After the operation was successfully ended and 24 militants were captured by the Pakistani forces, the villagers returned and organised a lashkar, a village militia to defend themselves and prevent the return of the Taliban. This worked, despite a volunteer of the militia being killed in a skirmish.
On 1 January 2010 a Mitsubishi Pajero suicide bomb car with some 600 pounds of explosives drove into a village square where a crowd was watching a volleyball game played by some members of the lashkar, while most of the elders of the village and the lashkar were meeting in a nearby mosque. The blast caused at least 97 deaths (other sources claim 105 deaths), with a further 40 wounded. An unknown organisation within the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) was responsible for the attack, which caused the most fatalities of any TTP attack. The driver of the bomb car was the son of a member of the Shah Hassan Khel lakshar.
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