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Suicide Bomber Kills 42 Pakistani Soldiers
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Nov. 8 — A suicide bomber detonated explosives on a military training ground in northwestern Pakistan on Wednesday morning, killing at least 42 army recruits and wounding about 20 more in the deadliest terrorist attack against the Pakistani military on record, government officials said.
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M.Khan/Associated Press
At least 35 soldiers were killed and dozens were wounded after a suicide bomber blew himself at a military training base in Dargai in northwestern Pakistan, military officials said.
Suspicion immediately fell on Pakistani militants who had vowed vengeance for an airstrike on a madrasa, or religious school, that killed 83 people near the Afghan border in the Bajaur district on Oct. 30.
The Pakistani military claimed responsibility for that attack, which it said was against militants in terrorist training. But residents and opposition politicians contend that the strike was conducted by an American drone aircraft, though the Pakistani government denies it.
The sudden escalation of casualties in Pakistan’s fight against militants is likely to further polarize public opinion, which is already broadly opposed to President Pervez Musharraf’s cooperation with the United States and his military campaign against tribes in border regions. It may also raise questions in the military about the campaign, in which about 600 soldiers have been killed in the past two years.
Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao said a suicide bomber wrapped in a shawl ran onto the military training ground, in Dargai, a town in North-West Frontier Province, and detonated his bomb amid about 130 recruits around 8:40 a.m. The military reported that 42 soldiers had been killed, but that number may rise, because some of the wounded were in critical condition.
“It was a guy with a short beard, wearing a shawl,” Khalid Mehmood, 18, a student who was walking on a road nearby and was wounded by shrapnel, told a local journalist.
Gulam Younas, a shopkeeper across the parade ground, said he was working when he heard a big explosion. “Amidst the rising dust, I saw bodies lying on the ground, wounded soldiers, limbs, shoes,” he said. “It was horrible.”
The military was pursuing a man suspected of being an accomplice Wednesday night who was chased to sugar cane fields several miles away. The man, described as in his mid-20s with a short beard, had been was spotted close to the scene of the blast by townspeople who said he was behaving suspiciously, military and security officials said. When someone fired on him, the officials said, he pulled out a hand grenade and threatened to hurl it at them, then disappeared into fields in a nearby village.
About 400 Pakistan Army soldiers and paramilitary Frontier Constabulary set up a cordon around the thick cane fields, which cover a little more than a square mile. Army tracking dogs, helicopters, searchlights and flares were brought in to help.
An unidentified caller told a local journalist on Wednesday that “Pakistani Taliban” were behind the suicide bombing and were retaliating for the airstrike in Bajaur on Oct. 30. The strike has been followed by daily demonstrations and protests against the government and the perceived American involvement in the strike. At least one militant leader from the Bajaur area, Maulana Faqir Muhammad, threatened to carry out revenge attacks.
Government officials in Islamabad, the capital, said Wednesday that the suicide bombing was linked to Bajaur, but emphasized that rather than a revenge attack, it was a proof of terrorist training in the region.
“We can trace back the linkage with Bajaur,” said Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, the chief military spokesman, Reuters reported. “We have been receiving intelligence reports about militants being trained for such activities,” he said.
“It is linked with the Bajaur incident. It is not a consequence,” said Mr. Sherpao, the interior minister. “It is linked in the sense that suicide bombers were trained in the area.”
Foreign fighters and operatives for Al Qaeda are known to be at large in the mountainous tribal regions adjoining Afghanistan. Local fighters and the militants are accused of training bombers and orchestrating attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan from their hide-outs.
A senior Pakistani intelligence official said Monday at a briefing that the madrasa in Bajaur had been receiving money from Al Qaeda to train militants and send them to Afghanistan to fight American and Afghan forces. Abu Faraj al-Libbi, an important Qaeda operative who was arrested in May 2005, disclosed under interrogation that he and other Qaeda members had visited the madrasa, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The anonymous telephone caller on Wednesday, who called the journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai of The News, a national newspaper, said that the suicide bombing had been carried out by a group led by Abu Kalim Muhammad Ansari, an otherwise unknown figure. The caller contended that the group had 274 more volunteers ready to be suicide bombers, Mr. Yusufzai said.
Yet while Pashtun tribesmen in border areas have sympathized with the Afghan Taliban and Al Qaeda, suicide bombing is new to them. Many Pashtuns say such attacks are alien to their tribal code, Pashtunwali, which forbids the killing of innocent people, and to their understanding of Islam, which forbids suicide.
General Musharraf has vowed to continue to fight such militants and to crush terrorism in almost daily comments since the Bajaur strike. Yet the suicide bombing is likely to increase the pressure on him to end military action in the tribal areas.
“There are very few now who think the military is an instrument that will work,” said Talat Masood, a military analyst and retired general.
Ismail Khan contributed reporting from Peshawar, Pakistan
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/09/wo...FA&oref=slogin
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Nov. 8 — A suicide bomber detonated explosives on a military training ground in northwestern Pakistan on Wednesday morning, killing at least 42 army recruits and wounding about 20 more in the deadliest terrorist attack against the Pakistani military on record, government officials said.
Skip to next paragraph
M.Khan/Associated Press
At least 35 soldiers were killed and dozens were wounded after a suicide bomber blew himself at a military training base in Dargai in northwestern Pakistan, military officials said.
Suspicion immediately fell on Pakistani militants who had vowed vengeance for an airstrike on a madrasa, or religious school, that killed 83 people near the Afghan border in the Bajaur district on Oct. 30.
The Pakistani military claimed responsibility for that attack, which it said was against militants in terrorist training. But residents and opposition politicians contend that the strike was conducted by an American drone aircraft, though the Pakistani government denies it.
The sudden escalation of casualties in Pakistan’s fight against militants is likely to further polarize public opinion, which is already broadly opposed to President Pervez Musharraf’s cooperation with the United States and his military campaign against tribes in border regions. It may also raise questions in the military about the campaign, in which about 600 soldiers have been killed in the past two years.
Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao said a suicide bomber wrapped in a shawl ran onto the military training ground, in Dargai, a town in North-West Frontier Province, and detonated his bomb amid about 130 recruits around 8:40 a.m. The military reported that 42 soldiers had been killed, but that number may rise, because some of the wounded were in critical condition.
“It was a guy with a short beard, wearing a shawl,” Khalid Mehmood, 18, a student who was walking on a road nearby and was wounded by shrapnel, told a local journalist.
Gulam Younas, a shopkeeper across the parade ground, said he was working when he heard a big explosion. “Amidst the rising dust, I saw bodies lying on the ground, wounded soldiers, limbs, shoes,” he said. “It was horrible.”
The military was pursuing a man suspected of being an accomplice Wednesday night who was chased to sugar cane fields several miles away. The man, described as in his mid-20s with a short beard, had been was spotted close to the scene of the blast by townspeople who said he was behaving suspiciously, military and security officials said. When someone fired on him, the officials said, he pulled out a hand grenade and threatened to hurl it at them, then disappeared into fields in a nearby village.
About 400 Pakistan Army soldiers and paramilitary Frontier Constabulary set up a cordon around the thick cane fields, which cover a little more than a square mile. Army tracking dogs, helicopters, searchlights and flares were brought in to help.
An unidentified caller told a local journalist on Wednesday that “Pakistani Taliban” were behind the suicide bombing and were retaliating for the airstrike in Bajaur on Oct. 30. The strike has been followed by daily demonstrations and protests against the government and the perceived American involvement in the strike. At least one militant leader from the Bajaur area, Maulana Faqir Muhammad, threatened to carry out revenge attacks.
Government officials in Islamabad, the capital, said Wednesday that the suicide bombing was linked to Bajaur, but emphasized that rather than a revenge attack, it was a proof of terrorist training in the region.
“We can trace back the linkage with Bajaur,” said Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, the chief military spokesman, Reuters reported. “We have been receiving intelligence reports about militants being trained for such activities,” he said.
“It is linked with the Bajaur incident. It is not a consequence,” said Mr. Sherpao, the interior minister. “It is linked in the sense that suicide bombers were trained in the area.”
Foreign fighters and operatives for Al Qaeda are known to be at large in the mountainous tribal regions adjoining Afghanistan. Local fighters and the militants are accused of training bombers and orchestrating attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan from their hide-outs.
A senior Pakistani intelligence official said Monday at a briefing that the madrasa in Bajaur had been receiving money from Al Qaeda to train militants and send them to Afghanistan to fight American and Afghan forces. Abu Faraj al-Libbi, an important Qaeda operative who was arrested in May 2005, disclosed under interrogation that he and other Qaeda members had visited the madrasa, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The anonymous telephone caller on Wednesday, who called the journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai of The News, a national newspaper, said that the suicide bombing had been carried out by a group led by Abu Kalim Muhammad Ansari, an otherwise unknown figure. The caller contended that the group had 274 more volunteers ready to be suicide bombers, Mr. Yusufzai said.
Yet while Pashtun tribesmen in border areas have sympathized with the Afghan Taliban and Al Qaeda, suicide bombing is new to them. Many Pashtuns say such attacks are alien to their tribal code, Pashtunwali, which forbids the killing of innocent people, and to their understanding of Islam, which forbids suicide.
General Musharraf has vowed to continue to fight such militants and to crush terrorism in almost daily comments since the Bajaur strike. Yet the suicide bombing is likely to increase the pressure on him to end military action in the tribal areas.
“There are very few now who think the military is an instrument that will work,” said Talat Masood, a military analyst and retired general.
Ismail Khan contributed reporting from Peshawar, Pakistan
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/09/wo...FA&oref=slogin
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