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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

__________________
To sit down with these men and deal with them as the representatives of an enlightened and civilized people is to deride ones own dignity and to invite the disaster of their treachery - General Matthew Ridgway

krishna

very sad

Tronic

not for me...

__________________
Nabha Sparasham Deeptam
-Touch The Sky With Glory

Hari_Om

Looks like the Pakistani’s are trying to foist the blame for this incident onto the Afghans, specifically the Afghan intelligence agency Khedamat-e Etelea'at-e Dawlati (KHAD) :

PAKISTAN: AFGHAN SPIES BEHIND BLAST, SECURITY SOURCES SAY

ainspiron

Case of fratricidal killing.

lemontree

From the analysis written in various periodicals. They all point towards the following:

1. The Pak-Taliban-Tribal peace deal had left the Taliban free to concentrate against the Coalition forces in Afghanistan. The number of attacks increased. This threatened US/coalition interests in Afghanistan.

2.The US wanted to ensure that another peace deal that was expected to be signed between Bajur tribal leaders and the military along the lines of an accord signed earlier in Waziristan.

3. That attack has been carried out by US Predator UAVs and not PA cobras.

4. This attack in Dargai has blown the earlier peace deal in Waziristan to shreds. Exactly what the US wanted.

__________________

Cheers!...on the rocks!!

Tronic

I don't really care who's behind it, its about time Pakistani blood spills this way, the same way they have been busy trying to spill Indian blood in Kashmir. If the US did it, hats off to them; if KHAD did it, then hats off to them too...

Green_Man

You indians better start watching you back now, the hunt is on , you are in cohorts wiht anti-pakistan elements in Afghanistan , and not to worry retribution is just around the corner

Samudra

Why the hell are you blaming India ?

'Pakistani Taliban' take credit for blast

Tronic

lol... haha... retribution.... what can Pak possibly do? Place some bombs in some more trains to kill some more innocent people? And when real men come out to fight, go run and start humping your nukes?

Ray

I hope not too many are killed this way.

It will not auger well for the WoT in which Pak is the frontline ally.

__________________


"Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

HAKUNA MATATA

Ray

Greenman.

Turning green with envy over India?

Green diarrhoea is a dangerous ailment!

You must see Imran Khan's Walk the Talk on NDTV!

What a joke PAKISTAN is, if one goes by what he says!

His advise is that you watch your back!

Islamic history is filled with a whole lot of backstabbing including within the immediate family!

Ray

Greenman,

How come this Taliban Joe commited suicide to knock off the brave Pak soldiers..

“Suicide is forbidden in Islam,” your president said. He was speaking to a large audience after inaugurating the four-lane Lahore-Sheikhupura-Faisalabad dual carriageway on Saturday.

Check your papers!

Now you Islamists go inflaming the issues and then you inflame yourself, by lighting up with explosives.

And you say the US has double standards.

OK. The US has double standards, for after all , in politics, there are no permanent friends or enemies, only permanent interests.

How come, with a non interpretable religion as Islam (Quran cannot be interpreted with modern situations, being the last word), when suicide is not permissible, blokes are lighting up as human bombs.

Double standards or total religious confusion and of convenience to misinterpret Islam.

Now, who is right? The Islamic human bombs (suicide) or Musharraf?

Ray

Greenman.

Turning green with envy over India?

Green diarrhoea is a dangerous ailment!

You must see Imran Khan's Walk the Talk on NDTV!

What a joke PAKISTAN is, if one goes by what he says!

His advise is that you watch your back!

Islamic history is filled with a whole lot of backstabbing including within the immediate family!

Green_Man

HAHHA You cowardly Indians start wetting your pants anytime you hear the word 'Islam' or 'Pakistan' , alomost comical to see.

24/7 barfing on the internet is not going to change the reality of your pathetic existance.

'India' is not really a country its made of differet people who all should have their own country and break away from the hindu areas. Sikhs should have Khalistan and Muslims of India should have their own country , maybe call is Imanistan , the Land of Iman. For starters thats an idea for Indian Muslims to think about , break away from these , they are niether like you nor realted to you same for the Sikhs

We'll support you and Sikhs to have your own independat homeland away from hanods

The Communists in Assam and other areas will be better of with an independant Assam.

We have no desire to have peace with you , specially you hanods ( Rai , Gai , Pai types hahah )