Soldiers Pay a Price in War on Terrorism

KARACHI, Jul 14, 2011 (IPS) - Army soldier Zaheer Abbas and his squad were hunting down militants in the outskirts of Darra Adamkhel, a town in northwest Pakistan famous for its weapons workshops, when they suddenly found themselves under a surprise volley of improvised explosive devices (IEDs).


Before he knew it, Abbas found himself thrown into the air. Disoriented but conscious throughout the attack, he recalled that when he fell to the ground, his fellow soldiers rushed to surround him. "I felt nothing, no pain, but as I looked down, I saw myself in a pool of blood."

That was two years ago. These days, the 25-year-old Abbas, who has been in the army eight years, counts himself lucky to have survived although he is maimed for life and his plans for a military career gone forever.

"I lost both my legs below the knee and two of my dearest friends," he told IPS, sitting on a bed at Pakistan’s Armed Forces Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine (AFIRM) in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, 16 km from Islamabad. "I found out about them (his friends) a week later." More >>>

Location: Islamabad