A suicide car bomber killed three policemen and a child yesterday in an attack on a police station in a northwestern Pakistani town, police said.
Al-Qaeda-linked Pakistani militants have carried out numerous attacks on members of the security forces over the past couple of years, and they stepped up strikes after the army launched an offensive on their main bastion in October.
The blast in the town of Karak, 200km southwest of Islamabad, came as police were on the alert for attacks on religious processions to mark the anniversary of the Prophet Mohamed’s birth.
“The blast destroyed part of police station and a nearby mosque,” police official Gul Sadi Khan said, adding that three policemen had been killed. “Thirteen people have been wounded and we fear more people are trapped under the debris.”
Another police official said a child passer-by had also been killed.
Karak is in North West Frontier Province, which has borne the brunt of attacks over the past year.
The Pakistani Taliban, allies of the Afghan Taliban, have lost much ground in army offensives over the past year.
The were pushed out of the Swat valley, northwest of Islamabad, and in October the army began a big offensive in the militants’ South Waziristan bastion on the Afghan border.
Pakistani action against militants on the border is seen as crucial for efforts to bring stability to Afghanistan, where US forces are spearheading one of NATO’s biggest offensive against the Afghan Taliban.
Fears of militant attacks on the Saturday holiday hurt trade in Pakistani stocks the previous day with the Karachi Stock Exchange benchmark 100-share index slipping 0.1 percent, as other regional markets rose, and turnover at a two-month low.
Fifty-seven people were killed in Karachi in a militant attack on a Muslim congregation marking the holiday in 2006.
The attack sparked violence in Pakistan’s commercial capital and the stock exchange shut for a day.
Meanwhile, Pakistani security forces said that at least 17 militants were killed on Friday in a battle with Taliban militants during a military operation in the northwest.
The gunfights took place during a joint operation by the Pakistani army and paramilitary forces outside the garrison city of Kohat.
“Today, 17 ‘terrorists’ have been killed and one security personnel got injured in the Pastawana area of Kohat,” the paramilitary Frontier Corps said.
“A huge cache of arms, explosives and eight suicide jackets have also been recovered,” it said.
The death toll could not be verified by independent means as the area is closed because of military operations.
Under US pressure, Pakistan is waging multiple military offensives against Islamist militant havens.
Its northwest tribal belt is branded by Washington the most dangerous place in the world and the chief sanctuary of al-Qaeda.
Police in Karachi said late on Friday they had arrested three suspected members of the banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi militant group and seized 20kg of explosives and detonators from them.
The three had planned to attack “important religious events,” said senior city police official Fayyaz Khan.
In a separate incident, gunmen fired on a religious procession on the outskirts of the northwestern town of Dera Ismail Khan, wounding four people, police said.
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