'Taliban' claim responsibility for Pakistan blast

A probe into the deadliest attack on Pakistani troops waging a counterinsurgency campaign along the Afghan border was progressing well, an investigator said today, as a previously unknown group claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing that killed 42 soldiers.

A man with explosives strapped to his body ran up to soldiers and blew himself up yesterday at an army training centre in the town of Dargai, about 60 miles north of Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier Province.

At least 42 troops were killed and 20 wounded, some critically.

“Body parts of the suicide bomber have been collected for DNA tests,” said a security official at the training centre today.

“We have vital clues and the investigations are proceeding well,” said the official.

Suspicion immediately fell on pro-Taliban militants who vowed revenge for an airstrike on a Muslim boarding school last week that killed at least 80 people in the Bajur tribal region to the north-west.

The government claimed the school was being used to train pro-Taliban guerrillas, but local residents said almost all the victims were children or teenagers.

In Kabul, President Hamid Karzai condemned the attack on the army base.

“Terrorists want to disrupt the peace and stability in Pakistan. Therefore Afghanistan and Pakistan must unite against terrorism and extremism and destroy their root causes,” he said in a statement.

Several hours after the suicide attack, an unidentified man telephoned Pakistani journalist Rahimullah Yousafzai in Peshawar and claimed responsibility.

The man said “Pakistani Taliban” carried out the bombing to avenge the Bajur incident. He identified the group’s leader as Abu Kalim Mohammad Ansari.

Security officials said they were not familiar with either the group or its alleged leader.

The caller also claimed that 275 volunteers had offered to take part in suicide bombings following the Bajur attack, media reports said.

The violence marked a sharp escalation in the low-intensity conflict between Pakistani forces and militants in the semiautonomous tribal area straddling the border, and sparked fears that the war in Afghanistan may be spilling over into Pakistan, a key US ally in the war on terror.

Dargai is considered a stronghold of the outlawed Islamic group Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat Mohammadi, whose fugitive leader, Faqir Mohammed, is a close associate of al-Qaida deputy chief Ayman al-Zawahri.

The US government condemned yesterday’s attack, and White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said America would continue to “stand with the government and people of Pakistan in this struggle” against terrorism.

President General Pervez Musharraf’s alliance with Washington in its war on terrorism has angered Islamic hardliners and the intrusion of Pakistan’s army into the mountainous tribal regions along the Afghan frontier has stoked unrest.