[NYTr] Twin Pakistan bombings kill 24

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

AFP - Sep 4, 2007
http://www.afp.com/english/news/stories/070904071706.6ipx4egr.html


Twin Pakistan bombings kill 24

RAWALPINDI (AFP) - Suspected suicide bombings tore through a bus
carrying Pakistani defence workers Tuesday in the garrison city of
Rawalpindi and a market minutes later, killing 24 people, officials
said.

The twin attacks hit sensitive areas of the city, which is near the
capital Islamabad and is the site of the military headquarters and the
official army residence of President Pervez Musharraf, a key US ally.

Pakistan's military and government have suffered a string of attacks
blamed on the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in the last two months, piling
pressure on the embattled Musharraf as he battles for his political
future.

"Both appear to be suicide attacks," chief military spokesman Major
General Waheed Arshad told AFP. He said that 24 people were killed in
the two blasts and that 66 were wounded.

The first bombing tore apart a bus taking defence employees to work,
leaving 16 of them dead and more than dozen wounded, government
interior secretary Kamal Shah said.

"It looks like a man boarded the bus at the last minute and he was not
a defence employee. There is a possibility that he might have blown
himself up," Shah said.

A senior Pakistani Atomic Energy Commission source denied earlier
reports that the blast may have targeted its workers but the exact
status of those killed remained unclear.

The white 40-seater bus was almost completely destroyed by the blast,
which could be heard across the sprawling city. Rescue workers cut open
the wreckage to pull out injured people and dead bodies.

"There was a huge bang, then I saw the bus in a mangled heap. Body
parts were scattered across the road and there was blood everywhere,"
witness Mohammad Tahir said.

The second blast happened about three kilometres (two miles) away in
the city's crowded R.A. bazaar, killing at least eight people, Shah
said.

The attack, initially thought to be a motorcycle bomb, may have
targeted another vehicle carrying defence employees, security officials
said. It was not clear whether the casualties were civilian or military.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for either blast.

Attacks have spiked in Pakistan since the military's storming of the
hardline Red Mosque in Islamabad in July. More than 100 people were
killed in the siege and storming of the pro-Taliban mosque.

Military officials say 60 soldiers and 250 militants have been killed
in violence in recent weeks.
A suicide bomber rammed his explosives-filled car into a paramilitary
vehicle in the Pakistani tribal region of Bajaur on Saturday, killing
three soldiers and two civilians, officials said.

The situation is also tense after the breakdown of a controversial
peace deal between the government and pro-Taliban Islamic militants in
Pakistan's troubled tribal belt bordering Afghanistan.

The army is still trying to secure the safety of more than 150 soldiers
whom militants say they abducted late last week in the tribal area of
South Waziristan.

The military insists the troops were "trapped" amid a dispute between
the rebels and local tribesmen, but the insurgents say they will not be
freed until Pakistan pulls all soldiers from the area.

Pakistan sent troops into the tribal zone to track down Al-Qaeda and
Taliban rebels who fled the fall of the hardline Taliban regime after
the US-led military response to the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Military ruler Musharraf, who is also trying for a power-sharing deal
with ex-premier Benazir Bhutto to end a political crisis, has come
under mounting pressure from Washington to crack down on Islamic
extremism in the area.

US officials have said that Osama Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network has
regrouped in Pakistan's tribal belt to plot attacks on international
targets.