Islamabad – Pakistan’s Taliban claimed Thursday that it mounted a suicide attack in Lahore that killed 24 people to avenge the anti-insurgency operation in the Swat Valley, where the military said it killed another seven militants in fresh fighting.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik also blamed the Taliban hours after gunmen fired guns and detonated a car bomb Wednesday outside the offices of the police emergency response service and the military’s premier spying agency.

Among those killed was a senior officer of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, and more than 250 people were wounded.

The police building was destroyed in the attack, which also damaged the ISI offices, several nearby commercial buildings and dozens of vehicles.

“We take responsibility for the Lahore attack, which was carried out in revenge for the Swat operation,” Hakimullah Mehsud, a militant commander and close aide of local Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, told reporters by phone.

Baitullah Mehsud heads the Pakistani Taliban and has been blamed for masterminding dozens of deadly attacks, including the suicide bombing that killed former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in December 2007.

Hakimullah Mehsud said the target had been identified soon after the security forces launched the offensive this month in the former tourist resort of Swat, 140 kilometres north-west of Islamabad.

Earlier, the US-based SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors terrorist communications, cited a Pakistani militant group named Tehrik-i-Taliban Punjab as claiming responsibility for the Lahore strike in internet postings on Turkish jihadist websites.

SITE said the relatively unknown Taliban outfit stated it “targeted the nest of evil” while describing the attack as “a humble gift to the mujahedin who suffer beneath the attacks of Pakistani forces in Swat.”

Pakistan’s military announced a “full-scale operation” in Swat on May 8 to rout Taliban fighters. Prior to the announced onslaught, bloody clashes erupted in Swat’s neighbouring districts of Lower Dir and Buner, a mountain district 100 kilometres from the capital.

Nearly 15,000 troops, backed by artillery, attack helicopters and jet aircraft, are engaged in fierce battles, including street fights in the scenic region, and have claimed they have retaken large swathes of land.

The government has reported more than 1,100 Taliban fighters and more than 60 soldiers have so far been killed in the offensive, but there was no independent confirmation of the count.

On Thursday, the military said security forces had killed seven “miscreants-terrorists” and arrested four militants over the past 24 hours.

Four soldiers also died when the militants ambushed a convoy of army trucks carrying food and relief supplies for thousands of civilians stranded in Mingora, Swat’s main city, where troops are conducting house-to-house searches to flush out the Taliban.

“Despite this unfortunate incident, the relief goods were distributed,” the military said in a statement.

The escalating conflict has forced 2.4 million people alone this month to flee their homes and take shelter in relatives’ houses and makeshift camps. The figure is on top of 555,000 people who had been displaced since August.

Pakistan’s government, with the support of political parties, the public and its Western allies, has vowed to “eliminate” the Taliban with apparent plans to expand the offensive to other militancy-plagued areas along the Afghan border.

But this comes with fears of a violent fallout in central parts of the nuclear-armed country, which has been placed by the United States at the centre of its new strategy to win the conflict in Afghanistan.

Hakimullah Mehsud also warned Thursday that the Taliban would carry out more attacks on government targets in the cities of Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore and Multan.

Except Islamabad, which is a federal district, all the cities are located in Pakistan’s most prosperous province of Punjab.

Alhough the Taliban insurgency is concentrated in the country’s north-western region, several militant groups like Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, which are based in Punjab, have developed links with hardcore elements allied with al-Qaeda.

The militants have targeted Lahore, Pakistan’s second-largest city and regarded as its cultural centre, three times in the past three months.

Gunmen ambushed the Sri Lankan cricket team in the heart of Lahore in early March, killing six police officers and two civilians. Weeks later, at least eight recruits died when militants stormed a police academy in the city’s suburbs. (dpa)