Posted on 07/19/2007 6:40:07 PM PDT by blam
Pakistan militants step up bomb attacks
By Isambard Wilkinson in Matta
Last Updated: 1:58am BST 20/07/2007
The aftermath of yesterday’s car bomb attack in the Pakistani town of Hub, near Karachi, which killed 29 people, including seven police officers
Suspected Islamic militants exploded three bombs in Pakistan yesterday, killing at least 52 people in the most serious violence since the siege at Islamabad's Red Mosque.
In the deadliest attack, seven police officers and 22 bystanders were killed in the town of Hub, near Karachi, when a moving car blew up next to a police vehicle protecting a convoy of Chinese labourers.
A suicide car bomber then detonated his explosives when guards prevented him from entering the parade ground of the police academy in Hangu, 45 miles southwest of Peshawar, capital of the North-West Frontier Province.
Later in the day, 15 people were killed at a blast in the military section of Kohat.
The tensions have claimed 270 lives in Pakistan this month, raising concern about the threat posed by Islamic extremists and deepening a sense of national crisis.
Following President Pervez Musharraf's earlier promise to hunt down militants, a brigade of soldiers was despatched to the fertile Swat valley, where thousands of locals are in thrall to Mullah Fazlullah, a rabble-rousing cleric who has called for suicide attacks and holy war in retribution for the "martyred" of the Red Mosque.
However, the troops' arrival in the valley has met with a fierce response. On Sunday two suicide bombers and a roadside bomb struck a military convoy at the city of Matta, killing 16 soldiers, five civilians and wounding 47 more.
Yesterday at the scene of the attack, two brothers described the carnage as they stood in front of one of the wrecked buses that had been transporting the troops.
"Our house collapsed and we ran out into the road. There we saw bloodied victims lying on the ground," said Kabal Rehman. "The soldiers were shooting into those apple trees as they thought they were under fire."
The body of a young girl, a neighbour, was found in the rubble between two shops.
The United States and its allies are now waiting to see whether Gen Musharraf's next move matches his expressed commitment to take on the extremists.
Despite the military ruler's initial rapid troop deployment and his pledge to seek out militants in "every nook and cranny", Pakistan appears to have gone into default position, with officials in the tribal area of North Waziristan trying to patch up a peace deal that militants abandoned last week - and the same is happening in Swat.
A US intelligence report has indicated that the Taliban and al-Qa'eda have substantially strengthened during the 10-month peace deal in North Wazirstan. In Swat, too, it will take more than a brigade of soldiers to remedy Pakistan's relationship with jihadi terror groups.
Javed Ali Shah, Swat's most senior civil official, said with conviction: "There will be no military operation in Swat."
He explained that to cool anger over the deployment of troops he had convened a jirga with members of the religious alliance of political parties that govern the North-West Frontier Province.
"The religious political parties are holding negotiations with the people who carried out the attacks through back channels," said Mr Shah, adding that Mullah Fazlullah had not been arrested as "arrest is not a solution to the problem because it is not our culture".
Instead, the Pakistan government is aiming to rekindle a peace accord which was signed with the cleric two months ago.
Qazi Ahmed Hussain, the local leader of the coalition of religious opposition parties, told The Daily Telegraph that his movement was using its old links with jihadists to attempt to bring an end to the attacks.
"We hope that good sense prevails and that the violence calms down. We do not want a state of emergency," he said. "We want elections. But the army should be confined to barracks."
Yesterday evening in Swat, a former princely state of the British Raj, a peaceful calm made it possible to believe that Pakistan was not slipping into chaos.
Facing the valley's hills and pausing to bite a peppery egg sandwich, Miangul Aurengzeb, the 79-year-old titular ruler of Swat, said: "This chap [Musharraf] is staging all this to avoid elections.
"The mosque problem could have been solved by a local police officer without any casualties."
Except for the 'chap' part, that sounds like something Harry Reid would say.
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