Pakistan (Reuters) – The death toll from a suicide attack in a volatile border region of Pakistan climbed to 102 on Saturday, showing the militants’ continued ability to stage deadly strikes despite losing ground in army offensives.
The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or Taliban Movement of Pakistan, claimed responsibility for Friday’s attack in Mohmand, a Pashtun region on the northwestern border with Afghanistan, where security forces have stepped up operations against militants in recent months.
Friday’s attack is the deadliest Pakistan has suffered since an attack on a market in Peshawar in October last year that killed 105.
Five children, aged 5 to 10, and several women were among the dead, and the toll rose on Saturday as rescuers working throughout the night found more bodies in the rubble.
“We have recovered more bodies from the debris of dozens of shops that were razed to the ground by the blast and the number of dead has increased” to 102, said Rasool Khan, assistant political agent of Mohmand.
The bomber blew himself up outside Khan’s office. There were mixed reports that a car bomb was the source of a possible second blast.
Late on Friday, a TTP spokesman in Mohmand who identified himself as Ikramullah Mohmand, said anti-Taliban tribal elders from various peace committees who had come to Khan’s office were the target.
A senior elder and two others were killed in the attack.
Among nearly 80 wounded were several people displaced by fighting between security forces and militants, who were collecting relief goods near the blast side.
The latest militant attack underscored multiple security challenges facing nuclear-armed U.S. ally Pakistan, whose support is vital in attempts to stabilize neighboring Afghanistan, where U.S.-led NATO troops are fighting a raging Taliban insurgency.
The military has made progress over the past year when they pushed militants out of the Swat valley, northwest of Islamabad. In October the army began an offensive in the militants’ South Waziristan bastion on the Afghan border.
The offensive was extended to Orakzai in March as many of the militants who fled the South Waziristan operation took refuge there and in Mohmand. Hundreds of militants have since been killed in air strikes in the two regions.
Troops killed 20 militants in an overnight clash in South Waziristan after insurgents attacked a military checkpost in their previous stronghold of Makeen, intelligence officials said. There was no independent confirmation of the casualties.
Despite losing ground in military offensives, militants have proven their ability to bounce back, responding with a barrage of bomb attacks in towns and cities, killing hundreds of people.
Two suicide bombers killed at least 42 people in an attack on Pakistan’s most important Sufi shrine in the eastern city of Lahore last week.
While praising Pakistan’s efforts to fight homegrown militants, the unabated violence is a source of worry for the United States, which also wants Islamabad to go after Afghan militants who cross the border to attack U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
In a separate incident in Afghanistan, suspected Taliban militants attacked a bus carrying Pakistani Shi’a tribesmen traveling from the Kurram tribal region and heading to Peshawar via Afghanistan, killing 11 and wounding one, residents and government officials said.
Pakistani tribesmen take a circuitous route through Afghanistan to travel between Kurram and Peshawar as the road linking the two regions is often closed because of militants and Pakistani Army operations.
(Writing by Augustine Anthony; Editing by Chris Allbritton and Jeremy Laurence)
Bhutto killing: ‘Ex-ISI chief remarks on US involvement outrageous’
The Obama Administration on Thursday termed as “outrageous” and “baseless” the allegation of Pakistan’s former Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) head Hamid Gul about the US’ involvement in assassination of Benazir Bhutto.
“That is outrageous,” a senior State Department official told reporters here after the US Embassy in Islamabad dismissed such an allegation coming from Gul about Bhutto’s murder and the UN report on it.
“He is frequent commentator on television, and certainly has an anti-American agenda,” the official said.
“General Gul made an outrageous suggestion that the US was responsible for assassination of Benazir Bhutto. And Jamaat claimed the US was somehow responsible for the terrible attack on their peaceful demonstration in Peshawar on Monday,” P J Crowley, Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, told reporters.
“Such comments are baseless and irresponsible and should be examined by Pakistani media objectively. The US and Pakistan were fighting and our citizens were dying at the hands of these common enemies,” he said.
Crowley said extremists do not discriminate between striking Pakistani and American targets and continue to claim innocent lives of people from all walks of life, “from the peaceful Jamaat protesters to Benazir Bhutto.”
“We are encouraged by the recent trends in Pakistani public opinion that recognise the value of the ongoing strategic dialogue and ever-improving cooperation between the United States and Pakistan,” he said.
The State Department official said that many people in Pakistan have recognise the positive tone and substance in the US-Pakistan relationship.
“Our strategic partnership involves working together to address the needs of the Pakistani people and the security of Pakistan and the region,” Crowley said.
He said the US and Pakistan “together can and must take a stand” against those who would serve as apologists for terrorists.
“In the best spirit of a free press, Pakistani editors and newsmakers should strive to highlight the irresponsibility of unfounded statements like these that are designed to divide rather than unite us,” Crowley said.
Acknowledging that the US’ low image in Pakistan is an issue of great concern to the Obama Administration, Crowley said the government was working hard in this regard.
“We have spent a great deal of effort building this relationship, explaining more significantly to Pakistani people, along with the Secretary (of State) in Pakistan, doing that, and we think that has helped change the environment. I think there was a significant and positive response to the recent US-Pakistan strategic dialogue,” he said, adding but this remains a work in progress and US would continue dialogue with Pakistan in the coming weeks and months.