Six killed as two bomb blasts rock Pakistan
Militant violence in nuclear-armed Pakistan, an important US ally, has surged since mid-2007, with attacks on the security forces, as well as on government and Western targets, and the Taliban threatened more yesterday.
Pakistan is vital for US plans to defeat al-Qaida and cut support for the Afghan Taliban and the US has been heartened by a military offensive against the Taliban in their Swat bastion, northwest of Islamabad.
But there have been eight militant attacks since the army began battling militants in the region in April and there is a danger the violence could erode public support for the campaign.
A short while after the bombs went off in Peshawar, a suicide bomber attacked a paramilitary post in another part of the city, killing three soldiers, a hospital official said. A wounded soldier said five comrades had been killed.
The attacks came hours after the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for a suicide car-bomb and gun attack in the city of Lahore on Wednesday that killed 24 people, saying it was revenge for the Swat offensive.
“We were looking for this target for a long time,” Hakimullah Mehsud, a commander loyal to Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, said by telephone.
The two bombs were planted on motorbikes in the Storytellers Bazaar in the old city. Six were killed and about 70 wounded, provincial minister Bashir Ahmed Bilour siad.
