Bomb attacks kill 14 in Pakistan

Three blasts struck a military convoy in north-western Pakistan today, killing 14 people in an intensifying militant campaign of violence against the government in the restive border region, an army spokesman said.

The latest incident followed the deaths of 24 soldiers in a suicide strike against another convoy in the north-west on Saturday in one of the deadliest suicide attacks of recent months.

The government has deployed thousands of troops to the region to thwart calls by extremists for a holy war to avenge the bloody storming of Islamabad’s Red Mosque last week.

The convoy of army and paramilitary troops was attacked today by suspected militants in Swat, a mountainous area of North West Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan, Major General Waheed Arshad said.

He said 11 soldiers and three civilians were killed in two suicide attacks and a roadside bomb blast. Thirty-nine soldiers were wounded by the explosions that destroyed two army vehicles and a bus carrying troops.

A gun battle erupted between soldiers and assailants after the ambush near Matta town, but the attackers later retreated, said a police officer.

Bodies and the wounded were pulled from the shattered military vehicles. Helmets, an engine, and pieces of twisted metal were strewn over a wide area, some of it stained with blood.

On Saturday, at least 24 soldiers were killed and 29 wounded on a road near Daznaray, a village about 30 miles north of Miran Shah, the main town in the North Waziristan tribal region, Arshad said.

The driver ploughed his explosives-laden vehicle into the convoy.

Although no one claimed responsibility for the attack, Arshad said it may have been in response to an army raid on the Red Mosque on Wednesday.

Tensions are high in Pakistan after the raid, which ended an eight-day siege with a hard-line cleric and his militant supporters. More than 100 died during the stand-off.

The region along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan has seen increased activity by local militants, the Taliban, and al Qaida.

With today’s attack in Swat, at least 67 people have been killed in bombings and shootings in the north-west since the Red Mosque crisis began on July 3.

Arshad said reinforcements had been sent to the north-west to beef up some 90,000 troops already in the region. Officials say fresh troops have moved into at least five areas.

One of the army’s apparent targets is radical cleric Maulana Fazlullah, who has pressed for Taliban-style rule in Pakistan – much like the leaders of the Red Mosque. Fazlullah was accused of telling supporters to prepare for jihad, or holy war, against President General Pervez Musharraf in revenge for the mosque assault.

Intelligence sources in Swat said that Fazlullah announced on an FM radio station on Saturday night he was fleeing to an unknown destination because he was about to be arrested.

In Islamabad, authorities detained Shah Abdul Aziz, a National Assembly member from an alliance of religious parties, for allegedly inciting people against the government during the Red Mosque siege.

He will be detained for 30 days, said Chaudhri Moohammed Ali, a senior Islamabad district official.

Aziz, who told a local television station he had done nothing wrong, was among a delegation of ministers and religious scholars who attempted without success to peacefully resolve the stand-off.