A suicide car bombing at a police station in northwestern Pakistan killed at least six officers yesterday — the latest in a string of attacks claimed by Taliban militants, security officials said.
Meanwhile, a bomb rigged to a bicycle went off near a vehicle carrying a senior police investigator in the southern city of Karachi, wounding four people, said Wasim Ahmad, the city’s police chief.
The investigator Raja Umar Khatab, who has played a key role in arresting many militants in recent years, was among those hurt, he said.
The attacks underscore the many challenges ahead for the two main parties in Pakistan’s ruling coalition — traditional rivals who united to force former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf from power less than one week ago.
Though the five-month-old government initially sought to tame militants in peace negotiations, it has in recent weeks become entangled in increased fighting with hard-line Islamic movements along its border.
That was hammered home two days ago, when Taliban militants carried out one of Pakistan’s deadliest-ever terrorist attacks — twin suicide bombings that killed 67 people at the country’s biggest weapons manufacturing complex.
Yesterday’s attack in Swat, where Islamic militants have been battling security forces to pressure the government to enforce Taliban-style religious laws, killed six and wounded several others, local police official Mohib Ullahn said.
A Taliban spokesman, Muslim Khan, immediately claimed responsibility and vowed more bombings if the government did not halt army operations in the area, once a popular tourist destination.
“We had warned the government [we would] target police and the army if it didn’t stop operations against us in Swat,” he said by telephone. “The government ignored and continued attacking our position.”
Also yesterday, a civilian died and three were wounded in the Bari Kot village in Swat when a roadside bomb exploded near their vehicle, Khan said.
Pakistan is a key ally of the US in its war on terror and has been fighting militants in the country’s tribal regions near the Afghan border since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the US.
The violence has spread to Swat and some other more-populated areas in recent years.
Meanwhile, Pakistani troops killed 35 militants in fighting in the Swat Valley northwest yesterday after the militants ambushed a patrol, a military official said.
Four soldiers were also killed, the official said. The fighting erupted shortly after a suicide bomber rammed a vehicle into a police station in another part of the valley, killing eight policemen.
The violence, combined with uncertainty over the future of a fractious coalition government, has helped undermine investor confidence and send the country’s financial markets on a downward spiral.
Separately, militants killed two civilians and wounded three children in a bomb attack near a security checkpost in Barikot, to the west of Mingora, the valley’s main town.
Until last year, the valley had been one of the country’s main tourist destinations.
But Pakistani Taliban fighters infiltrated from enclaves on the Afghan border last year to support a radical cleric bent on imposing hardline Islamist rule.
Violence subsided in Pakistan when a coalition government came to power after an election in February and opened talks with militants. In May, authorities in the North West Frontier Province reached a peace deal with militants in Swat.
But attacks intensified again across the northwest, including the Swat Valley, after top Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud suspended talks in June.
The resignation of staunch US ally Pervez Musharraf as president on Monday has raised questions about the government’s commitment to tackle violence.
But while Musharraf’s support for the US-led war on terrorism was deeply unpopular, the government has vowed to keep up efforts to fight the militants.
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