[NYTr] 17 killed in latest Pakistan suicide attack

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

AFP - Sep 11, 2007
http://www.afp.com/english/news/stories/070911152631.5i0uv3qk.html

17 killed in latest Pakistan suicide attack

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) - A suicide bomber killed 17 people in
northwest Pakistan as police tried to arrest him Tuesday, the latest
attack in a wave of violence that is piling pressure on President
Pervez Musharraf.

The attacker blew himself up inside a minibus in Dera Ismail Khan, a
remote town close to Pakistan's troubled tribal areas -- where the US
says Al-Qaeda and the Taliban have been regrouping since the 9/11
attacks exactly six years ago.

Pakistan has suffered a string of bombings since security forces raided
the Al-Qaeda-linked Red Mosque in Islamabad in July, adding to the woes
facing Musharraf, a key US ally, as he clings to power ahead of
upcoming elections.

"It was a suicide attack. Police started chasing him because he was
acting suspiciously and he jumped into a minibus before blowing himself
up," police chief Mohammad Khaliq told AFP.

"The policemen following him said he looked to be about 15 or 16 years
old."

The 17 dead included a policeman, a paramilitary soldier and 15
civilians, one of whom was a woman, he said. Another 16 were injured
including four police officials.

Body parts were scattered around the area and the minibus was
completely destroyed by the blast, police officer Abdul Hai said from
the scene of the attack. Television footage showed pools of blood on
the ground.

Police said they believed the bomber was trying to target government or
security force officials in the town but blew himself up when he was
detected.

The attack came hours after a bomb detonated by pro-Taliban militants
damaged a rock engraved with images of Buddha in another part of
northwest Pakistan that attracts thousands of tourists yearly, police
said.

The incident recalled the internationally condemned destruction of the
huge Bamiyan Buddhas in neighbouring Afghanistan by the hardline
Taliban regime in 2001 before they were ousted by US-led forces.

Shrapnel from the blast in the town of Malam Jabba in Pakistan's Swat
district hit the rock but did not damage the Buddhist images.

In a separate incident, also in Swat, suspected militants late Tuesday
shot dead the chief police officer of a local station as he sat inside
his car, police said.

Swat is a stronghold of a radical Islamic group with links to
Afghanistan's Taliban, and has seen several deadly attacks in recent
weeks.

Nearly 250 people have died in extremist attacks since July's Red
Mosque crisis, most of which have been suicide bombings. A further 250
militants have been killed in clashes since the mosque standoff, the
army says.

Around 30 people were killed a week ago when two suicide bombers blew
themselves up in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, ripping through a
military bus and a market near the Pakistani army's headquarters.

Musharraf has been under mounting pressure to tackle Al-Qaeda and
Taliban militants, who US officials allege have based themselves in the
tribal areas along the Afghan border since fleeing there after the
events of 9/11.

But the military ruler's mind is also on a swelling political crisis
ahead of elections in coming months.

Pakistani authorities on Monday deported former prime minister Nawaz
Sharif, the man Musharraf ousted in 1999, to Saudi Arabia within hours
of his return home from seven years in exile.