Pakistani Taliban militants yesterday said a weekend suicide attack that killed 13 people was carried out in revenge for a suspected US missile strike on a rebel hideout.
The suicide bomber struck near an army base in the northwestern city of Mardan on Sunday night, in the deadliest attack since a new government came to power in late March and began talks with the militants.
“Our local Taliban leaders in Mardan have telephoned us and claimed responsibility for the attack,” said Maulvi Omar, the spokesman for Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (Pakistan Taliban Movement).
PHOTO: AFP
“The Mardan attack was in reaction to Damadola,” he said, referring to a missile strike last week that killed 14 people in the town of Damadola in Pakistan’s tribal belt bordering Afghanistan.
The Pakistani military has accused US-led coalition forces based in Afghanistan of launching the missile from a pilotless drone and lodged a complaint over the violation of its territorial sovereignty.
Pakistan’s new government launched negotiations with Taliban militants based in the tribal belt after defeating Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf’s political allies in February general elections.
The talks have led to a marked drop in suicide attacks in nuclear-armed Pakistan, although the US has expressed concern, saying that any deal could let rebels regroup.
US President George W. Bush and Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani pledged after meeting for the first time at a summit in Egypt on Sunday to combat “terrorism”, but gave no public indication of a future joint policy.
Omar said negotiations between the government and the militants were in their “final stage and we hope for a positive outcome” — but warned against following US policies.
“Our men are greatly angered by the killing of innocent people in the Damadola attack and we want the government to take practical steps to stop American intervention in Pakistani areas,” Omar said. “The government should refrain from following Washington’s policy and imposing their war on us.”
Omar also condemned Pakistani authorities for allegedly demolishing the houses of local Taliban in Darra Adam Khel, a tribal area near the northwestern city of Peshawar.
“Incidents like the missile strike in Damadola and ongoing action in Darra Adam Khel against our men would trigger a serious reaction from local Taliban inside Pakistan,” he said.
Islamabad has fought a bloody campaign against pro-Taliban rebels and their al-Qaeda allies since US-led forces ousted Afghanistan’s hardline Taliban government in late 2001.
The violence soared last year, with more than 1,000 people dying in suicide attacks in Pakistan since the start of the year, including opposition leader and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
Officials said last week that Pakistan had moved its troops away from villages and towns in the tribal zone as the peace talks progressed, while the militants freed Islamabad’s kidnapped ambassador to Kabul.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home