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At least 43 people were killed and 100 were injured Saturday in a female suicide bombing in Pakistan's Bajaur tribal district, as many of the victims lined up for food outside a World Food Program distribution point, AFP reported. A woman wearing a burqa lobbed two hand grenades into the crowd before detonating her explosive vest, according to local police official Fazal-e- Rabbi Khan. The deadly attack came as Pakistani security forces launched air strikes in the tribal area of Mohmand. Local officials said at least 40 militants were killed Saturday, when helicopter gunships pounded their hideouts. A spokesman for Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has claimed responsibility for the bombing. "We carried out the suicide attack in Khar because these people had formed a lashkar (tribal vigilante force) against us," Azam Tariq said. Bajaur was once a Taliban stronghold in the area, which is near the Afghanistan border, but the military has now twice declared victory over the insurgents. Most of the victims belonged to the local Salarzai tribe that supports military action against the Taliban and has formed a militia to drive them out of Bajaur, AFP said. Both UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and US President Barack Obama strongly condemned the terrorist attack. "It is likely that the Taliban used the attack as a diversion to distract the Pakistani security forces in northeastern areas, especially from the North Waziristan region," Fu Xiaoqiang, a professor of South Asian affairs at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, told the Global Times. "The war on terror in Pakistan is getting complicated due to US pressure on Pakistan to send troops to North Waziristan," Fu added, noting that the Pakistani government is also under domestic pressure to show it is not allowing any foreign combatants to enter its soil to fight terrorists. The US-led coalition in Afghanistan last week denied a report by the New York Times that NATO is planning to conduct anti-terrorist raids across Pakistani territory by sending special operations forces to capture militants for interrogation. Agencies - Global Times |
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