AT LEAST 13 people were killed yesterday when a suicide bomber attacked a police station in north-west Pakistan.
The attack, the latest in two weeks of audacious assaults on security forces, came as government aircraft pounded Taliban targets in the tribal belt in anticipation of a military assault on their Waziristan stronghold.
Militants launched what appeared to be a two-pronged assault on a police interrogation centre, according to the Peshawar police chief, Liaqat Ali Khan. A car packed with explosives rammed into a perimeter wall, partly destroying the police station and the mosque next door.
The fortnight-old Taliban onslaught has rocked Pakistan, killing more than 160 people and exposing gaps in the country’s intelligence and security apparatus.
After attacking a UN office and the army headquarters in Rawalpindi last weekend, three gangs of militants struck different police facilities in Lahore on Thursday, killing at least 19 officers. The nine attackers were shot or blew themselves up.
The government says it is undeterred from carrying out plans to storm the Taliban heartland of South Waziristan, at the southern end of the tribal belt.
On Thursday night artillery struck militant positions in Makeen, Ladha and Shahoor districts of South Waziristan. An army spokesman, Maj Gen Athar Abbas, said “20-plus” people had been killed in the attacks. He declined to say when the ground operation might start.
Army officials say that 28,000 soldiers are massing in preparation for an attack on 10,000 Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters. Intelligence analysts say South Waziristan is the nerve centre for most of the recent attacks on Pakistan’s cities.
“The aim of an army operation would be to take out the Taliban infrastructure – disrupt the network so it can no longer project violence into the rest of the country,” said Kamran Bokhari, of the US-based Stratfor think tank.
The spate of recent attacks – at least six large-scale bombings in 12 days – has also focused attention on the strength of extremist networks in Punjab, Pakistan’s wealthiest and most powerful province.
Army generals and military analysts say extremists from jihadist groups based in Punjab, some with historical links to the Pakistani intelligence service, have forged a powerful network with the mostly tribal Taliban militants.
– (Guardian service)