A food relief program was expected to resume soon in the northwestern tribal region of Bajaur, Pakistan, where a suicide bomber killed 46 people outside a World Food Programme center on Saturday, according to officials.
“We have ceased operations in Bajaur for practical reasons,” Mageed Yahia, the deputy country director for the program in Pakistan, said in an interview on Monday.
However, he said operations would resume in the restive tribal region after security measures were in place and investigations completed. He said food relief activities were continuing in other parts of the country.
SCREENING
A woman in a burqa lobbed two grenades at security personnel before detonating her explosives at a security checkpoint in Khar, the main town in Bajaur, on Saturday morning. Hundreds of people, including women and children, were being screened there before they proceeded to a food distribution center about 485m away.
The bombing also wounded more than 100 people.
The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, which came just a day after militants carried out coordinated attacks on security forces in the adjacent tribal region of -Mohmand, close to the border with Afghanistan.
Most of the victims of the suicide attack on Saturday were members of the Salarzai tribe, which has taken up arms against the Taliban. That suggests the bombing was an act of retribution by the Taliban.
“The attacks demonstrate that the Pakistani Taliban has largely given up on attaining public support,” said Arif Rafiq, a security analyst based in Washington. “It will hit any vulnerable target available, even if it is wholly populated by civilians. The more the security services become inaccessible as targets, the more the Pakistani Taliban will take the war to Pakistan’s innocent civilians.”
Though UN officials termed the suspension of its food operation in Bajaur as necessary to ensure the safety of its staff, concerns have grown about the 42,000 families in Bajaur who are dependent on aid agencies for their daily ration and food supplies.
FOUR HUBS
The World Food Programme had four hubs in Bajaur that catered to internally displaced people who had returned to the region after assurances from the military, which opened an offensive against militants in late 2008. However, despite the military’s claims of success, militants have not been pushed out of the area and have frequently singled out security forces.
Bajaur, a district on the northern edge of the tribal region on the Afghan border, has long been considered a haven for al-Qaeda and the Taliban, which use the region as a base to strike US and Afghan targets across the border.
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