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Anti-Taliban cleric killed as suicide blasts rock Pakistan
(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-06-13 07:08 LAHORE: Suicide bombers attacked a mosque and a religious school within minutes on Friday in two Pakistani cities, killing at least five people including a prominent Muslim cleric who had recently condemned the Taliban, officials said. Pakistan has been rocked by a wave of suicide bombings and other attacks in recent weeks blamed on militants taking revenge for a military operation against the Taliban in the northwest Swat Valley region. In the country's east, an assailant went into the offices of the well-known Jamia Naeemia seminary in the heart of Lahore shortly after the end of traditional Friday prayers and detonated a bomb, police official Sohail Sukhera said. Two people died and 6 were wounded. The seminary's founder, Sarfraz Naeemi, was the apparent target and died on his way to a hospital, said his son, Waqar. The building housing the seminary offices collapsed. "I was still in the mosque when I heard a big bang. We rushed toward the office and there was a smell of explosives in the air. There was blood and several people were crying in pain," Waqar said. Naeemi had recently condemned a string of attacks blamed on militants and backed the ongoing military operation against the Taliban in Swat. Punjab provincial police chief Tariq Saleem Dogar denounced the seminary attack as un-Islamic. "It could not be an act of a Muslim to carry out an attack in a mosque," he said. The second attack occurred around the same time in Noshehra city in the volatile northwest near Swat. Attackers rammed a pickup truck loaded with explosives into the wall of a mosque in an area of the city used to house military officials, police official Aziz Khan said. At least 3 people were killed and more than 100 wounded, with others possibly trapped in the rubble, Khan said. "We fear that there could be more deaths. We are waiting for the equipment to remove the debris," he said. Violence has risen sharply across Pakistan after the Taliban vowed a campaign of bombings in retaliation for the Swat offensive. US triples aid The US House of Representatives on Thursday approved tripling aid to Pakistan to about $1.5 billion a year for the next 5 years in a key part of a strategy to combat extremism with economic and social development. The bill includes military aid with conditions that require the Obama administration to certify that Pakistan remains committed to fighting terrorist groups. The funding includes money for schools, the judicial system, parliament and law enforcement agencies. AP-Reuters (China Daily 06/13/2009 page11) |
