Jeremy PagePAKISTAN suffered its fourth big militant attack in eight days yesterday when a suspected suicide bomber struck a military convoy, killing 41 people near the northwestern region of Swat.
The bomber, said to be aged about 13, flung himself at one of three military vehicles passing through a busy market in the district of Shangla, near Swat, which the Pakistani Army claimed to have cleared of militants in an offensive this year.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which killed six soldiers and thirty-five civilians, and followed two other suicide bombings last week and a daring commando-style raid on the army's headquarters at the weekend.
It bore all the hallmarks of the Pakistani Taleban, which claimed responsibility yesterday for attacking the army headquarters in Rawalpindi on Saturday and taking 42 people hostage inside for 22 hours. A total of twenty-three people were killed in that attack, including nine militants, three hostages and eleven soldiers.
The army said that the Taleban appeared to be trying to intimidate it into calling off an imminent attack on the tribal region of South Waziristan, considered the main militant stronghold in Pakistan.
"It is now a matter of military judgment what is the appropriate timing in the best national interests," Major-General Athar Abbas, the army spokesman, told reporters about the timing of that assault.
"These are the signs of desperation of an organisation that is staring defeat in the face."
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which killed six soldiers and thirty-five civilians, and followed two other suicide bombings last week and a daring commando-style raid on the army's headquarters at the weekend.
It bore all the hallmarks of the Pakistani Taleban, which claimed responsibility yesterday for attacking the army headquarters in Rawalpindi on Saturday and taking 42 people hostage inside for 22 hours. A total of twenty-three people were killed in that attack, including nine militants, three hostages and eleven soldiers.
The army said that the Taleban appeared to be trying to intimidate it into calling off an imminent attack on the tribal region of South Waziristan, considered the main militant stronghold in Pakistan.
"It is now a matter of military judgment what is the appropriate timing in the best national interests," Major-General Athar Abbas, the army spokesman, told reporters about the timing of that assault.
"These are the signs of desperation of an organisation that is staring defeat in the face."
Source: The Australian
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