Pakistan: Suicide bombings in north east kill six

Taliban and al-Qaida recently called for attacks to avenge the army raid on Islamabad's Red Mosque.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
jp.services2 (photo credit: )
jp.services2
(photo credit: )
A suicide car bomber killed three police officers in northwest Pakistan on Thursday, while three government workers died in another suicide attack near the Afghan border, officials said. While there was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blasts, they follow Taliban and al-Qaida calls for attacks to avenge the army raid on Islamabad's Red Mosque. The car bomber detonated his explosives-laden vehicle after police had stopped him at a roadblock and asked him to get out, said Mohammed Iqbal, a local police official. Several more people were injured in the attack near Mingora, the main town in the remote Swat Valley, 120 kilometers northeast of Peshawar, Iqbal said. The bomber was also killed. The three government employees died when a suicide bomber on foot blew himself up in the government headquarters in the North Waziristan region, two intelligence officials said. The attacker struck after forcing his way into the building in the town of Miran Shah, 180 kilometers southwest of Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier Province. The blast killed a guard, a cleaner and a junior clerk and injured two other people, according to the officials, who asked for anonymity because of the sensitive nature of their work. Islamic radicals in both North Waziristan and Swat initiated a chorus of calls for attacks on security forces after President Gen. Pervez Musharraf ordered the army to besiege the radical Red Mosque in the capital. Since then, more than a dozen attacks have killed at least 35 people, including 17 soldiers and police, across the northwest, where Islamic militants are gaining in strength and from where many of the students at the Red Mosque's two seminaries hailed. The army said on Monday that it had deployed extra troops to both North Waziristan and Swat because of deteriorating security. Commandos stormed the mosque on Musharraf's orders Tuesday, killing scores of militants holed up inside and losing ten of their own men. The overall death toll from the eight-day confrontation was at least 108. Al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri and Dadullah Mansoor, a senior Taliban commander, have also called for vengeance attacks, including suicide bombings.