A bomb-laden car exploded in northwestern Pakistan yesterday as police were trying to pull a body from it, killing seven policemen and a passer-by, authorities said.
It appeared to be the first time militants in Pakistan had targeted security forces by using a body as a lure, and it underscored the challenge facing Pakistan as it tries to root out al-Qaeda, Taliban and other insurgents based along its border with Afghanistan.
The explosion yesterday morning comes less than a week after gunmen attacked Sri Lankan cricket players in eastern Pakistan and amid rising political turbulence from a court decision to bar an opposition leader from office.
The turmoil in the nuclear-armed country is of concern to US and other Western officials, who need Pakistan to focus on combating militants involved in the fight in Afghanistan.
The explosion occurred in the Badaber area, a small town on the outskirts of the main northwest city of Peshawar, where residents recently evicted a group of militants with help from the police. The move prompted militant threats of retaliation.
Initially, senior police official Safwat Ghayur said a suicide car bomber detonated his vehicle when officers at a roadblock motioned it to stop near the Khyber tribal region, a part of Pakistan’s semi-autonomous tribal belt where military forces have staged offensives to stem militant activity.
But officials at the scene said further investigation showed the police were led to a trap.
An area police chief, Rahim Shah, said officers were dispatched to Badaber after an unknown caller alerted them to the presence of a body in a car parked not far from a farm field.
“Police went there. They found the white car. They also saw a body inside, but when they were pulling it out, the car bomb went off,” he said, calling it a “new technique.”
Pakistan recently claimed victory in an offensive against militants in Bajur, a nearby tribal region where the military and insurgents have been battling since August.
Officials also say they are close to flushing out militants in nearby Mohmand tribal area.
But while the US has praised those offensives, saying they have helped reduce violence in neighboring Afghanistan, Pakistan has raised alarm bells in the West by engaging in peace talks with Taliban militants not far away in the northwest’s Swat Valley.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband on Friday urged Pakistani politicians to stop feuding and unite to focus on the “mortal threat” the country faces from Islamist militants.
Opposition leader Nawaz Sharif intends to lead a massive march on the capital in the coming week after a court ruled he cannot stand for office because of prior criminal convictions.
The main purpose of the so-called “Long March” is to push the government to restore the chief justice of the Supreme Court.
Miliband said it was “vital” that Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Sharif “unite against the mortal threat that Pakistan faces, which is a threat from its internal enemies.”
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not