Suicide attack on Pakistani tribal council kills 20
Fri Oct 10, 2008 9:24am EDT
By Alamgir Bitani
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - A suicide bomber killed at least 20 people in an
attack on a tribal council meeting in Pakistan's northwest Orakzai region on
Friday, an official and a tribal elder said.
Seventy people were wounded in the attack, which comes a day after a suicide
bombing at the heavily guarded police headquarters in the Pakistani capital in
which 8 policemen were wounded.
Pakistani tribesman backed by authorities were trying to raise militia groups
in Orakzai to drive out militants from areas regarded as safe havens for al
Qaeda fighters and their Taliban allies when the bomber struck.
"We were busy in raising a lashkar (a tribal militia) to evict Taliban from the
region when this attack took place," Qeemat Khan Orakzai, a member of the
council, told Reuters.
Kamran Zeb, top government administrator of Orakzai, said the death toll could
rise further. "The lashkar had taken a decision to destory militants'
headquarters in the region. Shortly afterwards, this attack took place," he
told Reuters.
Orakzai has been the most peaceful of Pakistan's seven semi-autonomous tribal
regions. Unlike most of the others, Orakzai does not border Afghanistan.
Militant violence has intensified across Pakistan in recent months in apparent
reaction to an army offensive against the militants in the rugged northwest
including Bajaur and Swat regions.
In Bajaur, which is a tribal area north of Orakzai, tribesmen found bodies of
four colleagues who were believed to have been abducted by the militants after
they agreed to become part of a tribal lashkar, officials said on Friday.
Separately, Pakistani security forces, backed up by helicopter gunships, killed
at least five militants in an offensive in Swat, an alpine valley once popular
with tourists.
The attacks came as Pakistan's newly appointed intelligence chief briefed
lawmakers on the internal security threat in a closed joint session of
parliament.
Pakistan, a frontline ally in the U.S.-led war on terrorism, has been under
tremendous pressure from the United States to take stringent measures against
militants' sanctuaries in the border areas to stem their incursions into
Afghanistan.
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, widower of former prime minister Benazir
Bhutto who herself was killed in a suicide attack, vowed on Thursday to rid his
country of terrorism.
The United States has carried out at least nine missile attacks, the latest on
Thursday night, and a commando raid on militant targets in Pakistan's tribal
areas since the start of September.
Six people, including three Arab militants, were killed in Thursday's drone
strike in North Waziristan tribal region.
(Writing by Zeeshan Haider; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)
© Thomson Reuters 2008. All rights reserved.
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Jusfiq Hadjar gelar Sutan Maradjo Lelo
Allah yang disembah orang Islam tipikal dan yang digambarkan oleh al-Mushaf itu
dungu, buas, kejam, keji, ganas, zalim lagi biadab hanyalah Allah fiktif.
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