At least 14 people have been killed and 50 others wounded in a suicide attack in Pakistan's Swat valley. The blast on Saturday at a security checkpoint in Saidu Sharif town comes just a day after a twin suicide attack on a military convoy in the city of Lahore killed at least 49 people. Speaking about Saturday's blast, Qazi Jamil, a senior police official, said the attacker was trying to get into a government building used by police and security forces. The Reuters news agency reported another official as saying the bomber had been travelling in a rickshaw when he detonated his explosives.
At least 14 people have been killed and 50 others wounded in a suicide attack in Pakistan's Swat valley.
The blast on Saturday at a security checkpoint in Saidu Sharif town comes just a day after a twin suicide attack on a military convoy in the city of Lahore killed at least 49 people.
Speaking about Saturday's blast, Qazi Jamil, a senior police official, said the attacker was trying to get into a government building used by police and security forces.
The Reuters news agency reported another official as saying the bomber had been travelling in a rickshaw when he detonated his explosives.
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Taliban suicide bombers struck across Afghanistan's southern city of Kandahar on Saturday, killing 30 people and wounding scores in a series of strikes the militants called a message to NATO. The city is at the centre of the Taliban's heartland and the next major target for NATO forces this year. Officials said the biggest attack was aimed at the prison on the city's outskirts, apparently an attempt to repeat a jailbreak there two years ago.
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Taliban suicide bombers struck across Afghanistan's southern city of Kandahar on Saturday, killing 30 people and wounding scores in a series of strikes the militants called a message to NATO.
The city is at the centre of the Taliban's heartland and the next major target for NATO forces this year.
Officials said the biggest attack was aimed at the prison on the city's outskirts, apparently an attempt to repeat a jailbreak there two years ago.
The Pakistani Taliban mostly hail from the Pashtun ethnic group in Pakistan's northwest, though they do have some tiny fringe Punjabi associates, such as the Lashkar-i Tayyiba. Their attempt to impress on the Pakistani military and public that they are still capable of fighting back through such bombings of soft targets will likely backfire in a major way. As long as the TTP was primarily attacking NATO and US troops or the Afghan National Army across the border in Afghanistan, the Pakistani military and public could largely ignore them, or even configure them as a generally anti-imperialist force that admittedly was a little extreme. But if they are going to blow up Lahore, the capital of Punjab Province, the TTP is going to have to be finished off. Punjabis are 55 percent of Pakistan, and the wealthiest and most powerful part. They are 80% of the army. Now, editorials are widely and bitterly complaining that the government has not dismantled the 'infrastructure of hate.' Some Karachi observers are calling on Punjabis to wake up to the threat. The subtext here is that Punjabi officers and politicians in the 1980s and 1990s fostered the Mujahidin and then the Taliban and small terrorist groups in hopes of using them to push the Soviets out of Afghanistan and the Indians out of Kashmir. But relationships change, and Punjabis are in fact likely to wake up.
