March 21, 2017 - 3:07 AM
ISLAMABAD - Pakistani authorities have suspended mobile phone services and blocked roads in parts of the country's capital during a rehearsal for a military parade due later this week in Islamabad.
The parade on Thursday will commemorate the national holiday, Pakistan Day, and showcase the military's strength. This year, it will also include Chinse and Turkish military contingents in a show of solidarity with their ally Pakistan.
The annual parade had been suspended for years but resumed in 2015, following the Taliban attack on an army school in Peshawar in December 2014 that killed 150 people, mostly schoolchildren.
Islamabad has increasingly tilted toward China for economic and military aid and Turkey has sought to expand its influence in Pakistan by training its police and improving infrastructure in the country.
News from © The Associated Press, 2017