A suicide bomber killed 19 people outside a Pakistan court today in the latest attack of an onslaught by Taliban reacting to the army offensive against them on the Afghan border.
The bombing was the seventh attack in less than two weeks in and around Peshawar, the largest city in the north-west. More than 80 people have been killed.
The bomber, who arrived in a taxi, was being searched by police at the gate of the city’s lower court when he detonated explosives on his body.
The city’s Lady Reading Hospital said 19 people were killed in the attack and 51 had been wounded. At least three of the dead were police.
The army launched its offensive against the Pakistani Taliban in South Waziristan in mid-October. It has retaken many towns in the region, but the militants say they avoided fighting and will now begin a guerrilla campaign.
The West has welcomed the assault, but wants the army to do more against the insurgents in the border area blamed for violence across the border in Afghanistan.
Pakistan officials announced the offensive in South Waziristan several months before it actually began, which critics claimed allowed the militants to escape and plan the current wave of terror.
Since the beginning of October more than 300 people have been killed in bombings and militant raids on government, civilian and Western targets in the country, most of them in the north-west.
Prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani insisted most of the militant commanders were either killed or on the run.
“They are using the weapons they have scattered here and there,” he said.
“God willing, it will take some time, but I assure you things will return to normal soon.”
Today’s explosion came hours after missiles from a US drone killed three suspected militants in Shana Khuwara village in North Waziristan, another region close to the Afghan border region where al-Qaeda and Taliban hold sway.
The missiles hit a house owned by a local tribesman just after midnight.
The United States has carried out 44 attacks with its pilotless, missile-firing aircraft in northwest Pakistan this year as it forces in neighbouring Afghanistan have faced an intensifying Taliban insurgency.
There were 32 such strikes last year, according to a tally of reports from Pakistani securityagents, government officials and residents.
Reuters/AP