http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=263812007
Suicide bomber kills 15 in courtroom GUL YOUSAFZAI IN QUETTA A BOMBER killed 15 people, including a judge, in a courtroom in the Pakistani city of Quetta yesterday in the latest in a series of suicide blasts to send shudders throughout the country. Television footage from the wrecked courthouse showed emergency services walking through pools of blood, collecting belongings, and body parts and torn clothes could be seen all around. Intelligence officials have attributed other attacks to sectarian Sunni militants linked to al-Qaeda and groups operating from tribal areas that are regarded as hotbeds of support for the Taliban. Police made a string of arrests last week, including two suicide bomb teams caught in southern Pakistan. But the bomb in Quetta exploded while a lower court was in session. A senior judge and six lawyers were among those killed. "According to our reports a man entered the room and blew himself up," said Baluchistan province chief minister Jam Mohammad Yousuf. "It could be a continuation of what is happening in other parts of the country." At least 25 people were injured with six in a critical condition. The suicide attacks started after an army air strike on a militant base in South Waziristan tribal region in mid-January. Including the death toll from Quetta, nearly 45 people have been killed in bomb attacks since then, as militants have sought to destabilise President Pervez Musharraf's government and weaken his resolve to confront the Taliban, al-Qaeda and their allies. Police arrested two suicide bomb teams in southern Sindh province on Friday, and identifed them as factions of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a Sunni Muslim sectarian militant group that has established ties with al-Qaeda. One team of three militants was captured after a gunfight in the southern city of Karachi, and another team of three was caught in the evening boarding a train at Sukkur, 515 km (321 miles) north-east of the port city. "We found explosives, splinters, circuits and jackets used in suicide bombings, as well as Jihadi literature on them," said district police officer Mazhar Nawaz. Police said the militants arrested in Karachi and Sukkur had been planning attacks on Pakistan's Muslim Shi'ite minority at the end of the holy month of Muharram, which falls in the first week of March. On Thursday, police arrested two members of Laskar-e-Jhangvi in Rawalpindi, the garrison town next door to Islamabad. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: [email protected] Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
