41 killed in attack on Pakistani military

A SUSPECTED suicide bomber killed 41 people in an attack on the Pakistani military yesterday as the Taliban claimed responsibility for a weekend raid on the army’s headquarters.

Militant attacks haveintensified over the past week as the army prepares to launch a ground offensive on the al-Qaida-linked fighters’ South Waziristan stronghold. Pakistani Taliban militants have launched numerous attacks on government and foreign targets over the past couple of years killing hundreds of people.

The target of yesterday’s attack in Shangla district, near the Swat Valley, was a military convoy, police said.

“It appears to be a suicide attack. The bomber hit one of three military vehicles that were passing through the busiest market in the district,” top Shangla police official, Khan Bahadur said.

Provincial information minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain said 41 people had been killed – 35 civilians and six soldiers – and 45 people were wounded.

The army has largely driven the militants out of Swat and their leader Baitullah Mehsud was killed by a missile fired by a US drone aircraft in August.

But the militants are hitting back. The army said Pakistani Taliban commander Wali-ur-Rehman was behind Saturday’s attack on its headquarters in Rawalpindi, near Islamabad.

Commandos stormed an office building near the headquarters and rescued 39 people taken hostage by gunmen after an attack at a main gate of the headquarters. Nine militants and three hostages were killed in the violence in Rawalpindi while the number of soldiers killed rose to 11, with the deaths of three wounded men, a military official said.

The 10 attackers had wanted to take senior military officers hostage to demand the release of a “long list” of captured militants, said army spokesman Major General Athar Abbas.

Abbas said a telephone conversation had been intercepted between Rehman and one of his subordinates.

“It revealed this attack was planned in the area of South Waziristan,” Abbas said, adding Rehman had told his subordinate to pray for the attackers’ success.

The leader of the attack, a former soldier who deserted in 2004 and joined a militant group based in Punjab province, was the only attacker captured alive but wounded, Abbas said. The man, identified as Aqeel, also known as Dr Usman, was from Punjab, he said. Abbas said while the Taliban and Punjabi militant groups had links there were no militant “safe havens” in Punjab, Pakistan’s biggest and economically most important province. Earlier yesterday, Pakistani Taliban spokesman Azam Tariq claimed responsibility and threatened more attacks. “It was carried out by our Punjab unit,” Tariq said by telephone. “We will take revenge for our martyrs and will carry out more attacks, whether it’s the GHQ or something bigger,” he said, referring to the army’s general headquarters.

A ground offensive in South Waziristan could be the army’s toughest test since the militants turned on the state. The army has not said when it will begin, but interior minister Rehman Malik said at the weekend an attack was “imminent”.

The military has been conducting air and artillery strikes for months, while moving troops, blockading the region and trying to win over factions.