Pakistan Taliban claim suicide attack

Fri Aug 28, 2009, 4:50 am ET

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) –

The Pakistan Taliban on Friday claimed responsibility for a suicide attack near the Afghan border that killed 22 policemen, saying it was their first retaliation for their leader's death.

A suicide bomber got into barracks near the Torkham border crossing late Thursday when officers were preparing to break their fast for Ramadan.

Officials said the attacker triggered explosives strapped to his body, killing 21 people and wounding 15 others. One more died of injuries overnight, they said.

"We claim responsibility for the blast," Azam Tariq, spokesman for Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), said in a telephone call from an unknown location.

"This is our first response since the death of our chief Baitullah Mehsud," Tariq told AFP. "We will continue similar attacks in the future also."

He said "the victims of the suicide attack were all those supporting the United States. Anybody supporting the US is our enemy."

Feared warlord Mehsud was killed in a missile strike by a US drone aircraft on August 5. His death was confirmed by Taliban commanders on Tuesday.

Thursday's bombing came hours after a US drone attack killed eight people in the nortHwestern tribal area of South Waziristan.

More than 2,000 people have been killed in a series of bomb blasts and suicide attacks in the country during the past two years.

Pakistan's northwest and tribal areas have been wracked by violence since hundreds of Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters sought refuge there after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

US strike kills eight Taliban in Pakistan: officials

August 27, 2009

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) –

A US missile strike from a drone aircraft Thursday killed at least eight (alleged) Taliban fighters in a tribal area of northwest Pakistan bordering Afghanistan, Pakistani officials said.

The strike was followed hours later by a suicide attack in the northwestern tribal region of Khyber that officials said killed 21 policemen.

The US strike "targeted a Taliban compound in Kaniguram village of South Waziristan, killing eight (alleged Taliban fighters) and wounding six others," a senior security official told AFP.

Another official confirmed the casualties and said that the US drone fired two missiles, but added it was not immediately clear whether there was any high-value target present in the area at the time.

He said: "(The fighters) were using the compound of local tribesman Azam Khan Mehsud for their activities in the area.

"Nationalities of all the (fighters) killed in the strike were not immediately known but some of them were Uzbek nationals."

He added that the village was known to contain hideouts belonging to fighters loyal to slain Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud.

Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a US drone attack on August 5, although his death was only confirmed by Taliban commanders on Tuesday.

The US military does not, as a rule, confirm drone attacks, but its armed forces and the Central Intelligence Agency operating in Afghanistan are the only forces that deploy drones in the region.

Hours after the drone attack, a suicide attacker blew himself up in the police residential barracks in Torkham, a town near the Afghan border.

A senior administration official, Rehan Gul Khattak, told AFP the authorities had found "the head of the bomber" and a security official in the area also confirmed the attack and the number of casualties.

Pakistan in April launched a punishing military offensive against the Taliban in the northwest, targeting the rebels in the districts of Swat, Buner and Lower Dir after (fighters) advanced closer to the capital Islamabad.

Last month the military claimed to have cleared the area of Taliban and vowed to turn their attention to the mountainous tribal belt along the border where Mehsud and his Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) have thrived since 2007.

Pakistan's previous government accused Mehsud of masterminding the 2007 assassination of ex-prime minister Benazir Bhutto and a string of other attacks that have killed hundreds of people here over the last two years.

Islamabad publicly opposes suspected US missile strikes, saying they violate its territorial sovereignty and deepen resentment among the populace. Since August 2008, around 52 such strikes have killed more than 521 people.

But many analysts and observers believe that the government tacitly supports the attacks, as it shares the US goal of eliminating Mehsud's network, which is blamed for scores of deadly attacks in nuclear-armed Pakistan.

Meanwhile, Pakistani troops killed (nine alleged Taliban fighters) in the northwestern district of Buner and Swat valley on Thursday, officials said.

"Army troops and police exchanged fire with (fighters) after they attacked a police post in Buner, killing seven rebels," local administration official Yahya Akhundzada told AFP.

A local police official also confirmed the incident and casualties and said troops arrested four (fighters) after the gunfight.

Troops killed two other rebels following a gunfight in Kabal village of Swat, a local security official said, adding that the firefight broke out after(fighters) attacked an army checkpost.