Four children and their parents were killed in a hand-grenade blast in Pakistan’s restive northwest yesterday, a day after 12 children were killed by a bomb hidden in a soccer ball.
Violence has increased in the region as Taliban fighters have extended their reach. Western allies, needing Pakistan’s help to defeat al-Qaeda and stabilize neighboring Afghanistan, fear the country is in danger of sliding into chaos.
The grenade exploded in a car carrying a couple and their eight children near Datta Kheil, a district in the North Waziristan tribal region, near the Afghan border.
“The parents and four of their children died instantly and their bodies were brought to hospital,” Mirbad Khan, a hospital official in Miranshah, the main town of North Waziristan, said. “Four other children were wounded.”
Authorities did not know if the parents were carrying the grenade or it was planted in the car.
North Waziristan is one of the major sanctuaries for al-Qaeda and Taliban militants in Pakistani border areas with Afghanistan.
On Saturday, 12 children were killed in Lower Dir when they were playing with a soccer ball and it exploded.
The children, five of them girls, found the ball as they were returning from school. Seven victims belonged to the same family.
Dir is part of the Malakand division of Northwest Frontier Province, where Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari this month sanctioned the imposition of Islamic law under a controversial deal aimed at ending conflict with Taliban militants in Swat valley.
But just days after Zardari’s move, fighters in Swat intruded into neighboring parts of Malakand, closer to the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.
Western governments have criticized Pakistan for cutting deals, saying it would encourage militants.
Pakistani officials say they are trying to use political means to reduce the violence, but signs are emerging that the government is preparing to unleash the military.
Meanwhile Taliban militants in the Buner district shaved the heads and moustaches of four Pakistani men as punishment for listening to music, one of the men said yesterday.
Buner has been subject to US concern after hundreds of Taliban fighters advanced into the area from the Swat Valley.
Although Taliban and local officials said the fighters retreated from Buner by Saturday, local members of the movement remain. Residents said many fighters were still present in the hilly outskirts of the district.
In one incident late on Saturday, Taliban shaved the heads and moustaches of four men for listening to music, a young man from Buner said by telephone, requesting not to be identified.
“I was with three other friends in my car, listening to music when armed Taliban stopped us and, after smashing cassettes and the cassette player, they shaved half our heads and moustaches,” he said.
“The Taliban also beat us and asked us not to listen to music ever again,” the man said.
Local police said they had no information about the incident.
The victim said neither he nor his friends lodged a complaint with police, as this would have been “useless.”
“It might have annoyed the Taliban further and I fear for my life,” the man said.
Residents in Mingora, the main town in Swat, said Taliban posters had been put up in streets and markets ordering women not to go shopping. The posters appeared after the controversial agreement on Islamic law.
“We will take action against women who go out shopping in the markets and any shopkeeper seen dealing with women shoppers will be dealt with severely,” read the poster from the Swat branch of Tehreek-e-Taliban.
“The peace agreement does not mean that obscenity should be re-born,” it said.
The Taliban consider it “obscene” for women to leave home.
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