Suicide Blast Kills 30 in Pakistan
Source: NYT
By PIR ZUBAIR SHAH
Published: September 18, 2009
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — At least 35 people were killed Friday in a suicide car bomb attack in a Shiite village in northwest Pakistan, a top provincial official said. The village is in Kohat District, the site of past sectarian killings.
Pakistanis loaded into a vehicle the body of a victim of a bombing on Friday in a Shiite village in the North-West Frontier Province.
The explosion was followed within hours by the shooting of three people at a funeral for one of the people who died in the bomb blast and the killing of an influential district mayor in nearby Hangu, a center of sectarian strife, according to the provincial official, Mian Iftkhar Hussain.
The initial blast, a powerful explosion that shook the village of Ustarzai near the garrison town of Kohat, flattened a two-story hotel and a number of shops at a nearby bazaar. Rescue teams worked through the afternoon to pull victims from the rubble.
The bomb contained more than 300 pounds of explosives, said Ali Hassan Khan, the police station house officer in Ustarzai.
A crowd of Shiite residents in the town, angry about the failure of the police to provide security in their vulnerable neighborhoods, attacked a police car with rocks when it arrived at the scene of the blast on Friday.
Kohat District is predominantly Sunni Muslim, and its outlying areas have long served as a haven for Taliban fighters. But there are a number of Shiite communities in the district as well, and sectarian violence there has been chronic and deadly. Recent operations by the police and government security forces against Taliban militants have further heightened tensions.
The district, in the North-West Frontier Province, is on the edge of the Orakzai tribal area, where the Taliban and other Sunni militant groups more committed to sectarian violence are entrenched. Militants have attacked Shiites in Hangu and Kohat.
Agence France-Presse reported that a spokesman for a banned Sunni militant group, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, said the group had been behind the bombing, but it was impossible to immediately confirm that claim. The group is allied with Al Qaeda and is responsible for many sectarian and other terrorist attacks in Pakistan.
Mr. Hussain, who spoke on a private television station, said that sometime after the blast in Kohat, gunmen approached a funeral for one of the people killed and opened fire. It was unclear who the gunmen were.
The mayor of the nearby district of Hangu, also in North-West Frontier Province, was killed in a bomb blast at a mosque next to his house and was thought to be the target. It was unclear who was behind the attack on the mayor, Hajji Khan Afzal.
The News International, an English-language newspaper in Pakistan, reported the arrests on Monday of 22 people suspected of being Taliban insurgents and the seizure of dozens of weapons and 11 pounds of hashish. The paper said eight other people were arrested Thursday.
Mark McDonald contributed reporting from Hong Kong.
By PIR ZUBAIR SHAH
Published: September 18, 2009
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — At least 35 people were killed Friday in a suicide car bomb attack in a Shiite village in northwest Pakistan, a top provincial official said. The village is in Kohat District, the site of past sectarian killings.
Pakistanis loaded into a vehicle the body of a victim of a bombing on Friday in a Shiite village in the North-West Frontier Province.
The explosion was followed within hours by the shooting of three people at a funeral for one of the people who died in the bomb blast and the killing of an influential district mayor in nearby Hangu, a center of sectarian strife, according to the provincial official, Mian Iftkhar Hussain.
The initial blast, a powerful explosion that shook the village of Ustarzai near the garrison town of Kohat, flattened a two-story hotel and a number of shops at a nearby bazaar. Rescue teams worked through the afternoon to pull victims from the rubble.
The bomb contained more than 300 pounds of explosives, said Ali Hassan Khan, the police station house officer in Ustarzai.
A crowd of Shiite residents in the town, angry about the failure of the police to provide security in their vulnerable neighborhoods, attacked a police car with rocks when it arrived at the scene of the blast on Friday.
Kohat District is predominantly Sunni Muslim, and its outlying areas have long served as a haven for Taliban fighters. But there are a number of Shiite communities in the district as well, and sectarian violence there has been chronic and deadly. Recent operations by the police and government security forces against Taliban militants have further heightened tensions.
The district, in the North-West Frontier Province, is on the edge of the Orakzai tribal area, where the Taliban and other Sunni militant groups more committed to sectarian violence are entrenched. Militants have attacked Shiites in Hangu and Kohat.
Agence France-Presse reported that a spokesman for a banned Sunni militant group, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, said the group had been behind the bombing, but it was impossible to immediately confirm that claim. The group is allied with Al Qaeda and is responsible for many sectarian and other terrorist attacks in Pakistan.
Mr. Hussain, who spoke on a private television station, said that sometime after the blast in Kohat, gunmen approached a funeral for one of the people killed and opened fire. It was unclear who the gunmen were.
The mayor of the nearby district of Hangu, also in North-West Frontier Province, was killed in a bomb blast at a mosque next to his house and was thought to be the target. It was unclear who was behind the attack on the mayor, Hajji Khan Afzal.
The News International, an English-language newspaper in Pakistan, reported the arrests on Monday of 22 people suspected of being Taliban insurgents and the seizure of dozens of weapons and 11 pounds of hashish. The paper said eight other people were arrested Thursday.
Mark McDonald contributed reporting from Hong Kong.
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