Print

Mail

wiki links

Suicide bombers kill up to 38 in Pakistan

Local residents gather at the site of a suicide bombing in Swat, a mountainous area of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan, yesterday. PHOTO: AP

Suicide bombers struck yesterday in two areas of northwestern Pakistan, killing up to 38 people, while Taliban militants broke a 10-month-old peace pact with the government along the frontier with Afghanistan.

The militants said the ceasefire agreement was being terminated in North Waziristan, where Taliban and al-Qaeda operate, because government forces had attacked the militants, failed to pay compensation to those harmed and created problems at check points.

"The peace agreement has ended," Abdullah Farad, a militant spokesman, told journalists in the city of Peshawar.

He said the Taliban chief in North Waziristan, Maulvi Gul Badahar, made the decision at a council meeting after the government had failed to abide by its demand that it withdraw troops from checkpoints by 4pm yesterday.

The announcement came as suspected militants launched suicide attacks and a roadside bomb in the northwest which together killed 38 persons and wounded more than 80.

The government has deployed thousands of troops to the restive region to thwart calls by extremists for a holy war to avenge the bloody storming of Islamabad's Red Mosque last week.

Three blasts struck a military convoy in Swat, a mountainous area of North West Province, killing 18 people and wounding 47, an official said, citing an official report being sent to Islamabad.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with the media, said two explosive-laden vans driven by the suicide bombers rammed the convoy. He said the dead also included seven civilians.

Earlier, army spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad said 14 soldiers and civilians died when the convoy was hit by two suicide attackers and a roadside bomb very near the town of Matta.

It was not immediately possible to reconcile the two different death tolls.

A gunbattle erupted between soldiers and assailants after the ambush but the attackers later retreated, police said.

In the day's second attack, a suicide bomber targeted scores of people taking medical and written exams for recruitment to the police force in the city of Dera Ismail Khan. The blast killed 20 people and wounded 35, police officer Mohammed Aslam said.
This story has been viewed 786 times.