Taliban admit Lahore suicide attack

The Taliban today admitted it was behind a bomb and gun attack in Lahore that killed 30 people, claiming it was revenge for the offensive against them in the country’s north-west..

Hakimullah Mehsud, a deputy to Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, said yesterday’s suicide attack “was in response to the Swat operation where innocent people have been killed.”

At least 250 wounded on top of the death toll when gunmen fired and threw grenades at offices of the police and top intelligence agency, then detonated an explosive-laden van in a busy street in Pakistan’s second-largest city.

The attack on Lahore, the capital of the Punjab province, was far from the troubled Afghan border region where the Taliban have established strongholds in the Swat Valley.

The military launched a major offensive in Swat after the Taliban seized control of a neighbouring district an a bid to extend their influence.

Western allies see the offensive as a test of the Pakistani government’s resolve to take on the spread of militancy.

Yesterday’s attack was the third since March in Lahore, following ones on the visiting Sri Lankan cricket team and a police academy.

Officials fear militants may be choosing targets there to make the point that nowhere is beyond their reach.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik said militants were striking out because they were losing the fight with government forces battling to uproot extremists.

The military released a transcript of what it said was an intercepted phone call made by the Taliban spokesman in Swat, Muslim Khan, in which he sought help from militants in Waziristan to take revenge on military commanders in Punjab for the Swat offensive. Waziristan abuts Punjab.

Khan asked the recipient of the call, who was not identified, to target “generals or colonels from Punjab so that they feel the pain” of people suffering in Swat.

Meanwhile the government took out newspaper adverts today listing 21 Taliban leaders – 18 of them with pictures – and offering rewards for each.