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Pakistan market blast kills 8
(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-06-15 07:40
DERA ISMAIL KHAN: A bomb blast in a market killed eight people in northwest Pakistan yesterday, the latest in a wave of attacks since the army launched an offensive against Taliban militants. Nuclear-armed Pakistan is struggling to push back a growing Taliban insurgency and security forces have made progress in more than a month of fighting against militants in the Swat valley, northwest of Islamabad. The militants have responded with a string of bombs in towns and cities. Separately yesterday, a suspected US drone aircraft fired a missile in the South Waziristan region, a stronghold of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, killing three militants traveling in a vehicle, a witness and officials said. The bomb in a market in the northwestern town of Dera Ismail Khan killed eight people and wounded 25, a government official said. "The initial probe suggests that the device was planted in a push-cart parked in the middle of the market," said Syed Mohsin Shah, the top government official in the city. Rising violence has raised fears for Pakistan's stability and for the safety of its nuclear arsenal but the offensive in Swat has reassured the United States, which needs its Muslim ally's help to defeat Al-Qaida and stabilize neighboring Afghanistan. The United States, alarmed by the deteriorating security in Afghanistan, has been using drone aircraft to attack Taliban and Al-Qaida fighters in northwestern Pakistani militant strongholds. The drone strike yesterday, the first since May 16, was in Laddah, in South Waziristan, about 60 km north of the region's main town of Wana. "The missile destroyed the vehicle and I saw three bodies lying next to it," ethnic Pashtun tribal leader Habibullah Mehsud said by telephone from the region on the Afghan border. A government official in the region confirmed the attack. Though a staunch US ally, Pakistan objects to the US missile strikes saying they violate its sovereignty and undermine efforts to deal with militancy because they inflame public anger and bolster militant support. Reuters
(China Daily 06/15/2009 page6) |
