Suicide bombers kill 50 in attack on anti-Taliban militia in Pakistan

TWIN suicide bombers in police uniforms killed 50 people and injured 100 in Pakistan’s tribal badlands yesterday, attacking an anti-Taliban militia and pro-government elders near the Afghan border.

The bombers hit an administration compound in Ghalanai, the main town in the district of Mohmand, about 175km northwest of Islamabad and which has been hard hit by Islamist violence.

A purported Pakistani Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the attack, threatening death to anyone who forms militias against the Islamists.

Survivor Sakhi Jan, a 50-year-old member of the peace committee — the anti-Taliban militia — said “double blasts rocked everything around”.

Amjad Ali, a senior administration official in Mohmand district, said 50 people were killed and 60 wounded, with 25 in a serious condition.

“The bombers were wearing tribal police uniform. One of them blew himself up at the main gate and the second in the office,” Ali said.

At least 10 government officials and two Pakistani television journalists were among the dead, he said.

Washington considers Pakistan’s lawless northwestern tribal belt a global headquarters of al-Qaida and the area is the focus of a covert American drone war targeting senior Taliban militant commanders.

More than 100 people were believed to have been in the compound where government officials, allied tribal elders and members of the local anti-Taliban militia were meeting.

“Tribesmen and elders had been sitting in small groups on the lawn outside the office of the political agent,” said Shuja Ahmed, another peace committee member.

Local official Maqsood Amin said the bombs destroyed two rooms in the compound.

There were divergent reports on whether at least one bomber blew himself up on a motorbike or whether the attackers came on foot.

Pakistan has long armed and supported tribesmen in a strategy designed to protect communities from Taliban encroachments.

It was the second suicide attack in five months targeting Mohmand tribal elders allied to the government. On July 9, a suicide car bomb attack killed 105 people in Yakaghund.

Around 4,000 people have been killed in suicide and bomb attacks across Pakistan since government forces raided an extremist mosque in Islamabad in 2007.