Suicide Attacks by Militants in Pakistan Kill 49
By ISMAIL KHAN
New York Times
PESHAWAR, Pakistan, July 15 — Suicide bombers struck a police recruitment center and a military convoy on Sunday in Pakistan’s volatile northwest, killing at least 49 people in a rapidly escalating conflict between militants and the government.
Since July 3, suicide attacks have claimed 103 lives in the nation’s tribal areas and North-West Frontier Province, including an explosion on Saturday that killed 24 soldiers.
The latest bombings come at a time of extreme tension in a region used as a redoubt by the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Extremists have called for a holy war against Pakistan’s government to avenge the storming of the Red Mosque last week in Islamabad, a military assault that killed at least 75 people holed up inside. At the same time, a 10-month-old truce between the government and local tribal leaders seems to have fatally come undone.
Sunday’s first bombing was a coordinated attack against the military convoy, claiming the lives of 16 soldiers and five civilians in Matta, a town in the mountainous Swat district of the North-West Frontier Province.
“The suicide attack involved two cars,” said a Pakistani security official who would speak only on the condition of anonymity. “One hit the convoy from the front, which caused the most casualties, while the other hit the convoy from the rear.”
The twin blasts damaged about 30 nearby shops and tore through the roofs of six houses, according to witnesses. A motorcycle packed with explosives had been left in the same area and was set off with a remote-controlled device.
(Continued here.)
New York Times
PESHAWAR, Pakistan, July 15 — Suicide bombers struck a police recruitment center and a military convoy on Sunday in Pakistan’s volatile northwest, killing at least 49 people in a rapidly escalating conflict between militants and the government.
Since July 3, suicide attacks have claimed 103 lives in the nation’s tribal areas and North-West Frontier Province, including an explosion on Saturday that killed 24 soldiers.
The latest bombings come at a time of extreme tension in a region used as a redoubt by the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Extremists have called for a holy war against Pakistan’s government to avenge the storming of the Red Mosque last week in Islamabad, a military assault that killed at least 75 people holed up inside. At the same time, a 10-month-old truce between the government and local tribal leaders seems to have fatally come undone.
Sunday’s first bombing was a coordinated attack against the military convoy, claiming the lives of 16 soldiers and five civilians in Matta, a town in the mountainous Swat district of the North-West Frontier Province.
“The suicide attack involved two cars,” said a Pakistani security official who would speak only on the condition of anonymity. “One hit the convoy from the front, which caused the most casualties, while the other hit the convoy from the rear.”
The twin blasts damaged about 30 nearby shops and tore through the roofs of six houses, according to witnesses. A motorcycle packed with explosives had been left in the same area and was set off with a remote-controlled device.
(Continued here.)
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