Bombings targeted a Pakistani police station and set a NATO fuel convoy ablaze, killing 16 cadets in the northwest’s Swat Valley and threatening the supply line to international forces in Afghanistan in a separate attack near the border.
The two blasts on Sunday, hours apart and hundreds of kilometers from each other, came as Pakistani officials said the Taliban were ramping up strikes to avenge recent setbacks, including the loss of territory to the military and the death of their top leader in a CIA missile strike near the Afghan border.
Pakistan’s military has in recent months intensified its fight against the al-Qaeda-linked extremists, who threaten stability in the nuclear-armed nation and are suspected of helping plot attacks against US and NATO troops across the border in Afghanistan.
PHOTO: REUTERS
The suicide attack in Swat underlined the army’s struggle to maintain order in the valley recently retaken from the militants, while the bomb on the NATO convoy — which sent flames through a line of backed-up fuel tankers at the border — killed one driver and destroyed 16 trucks.
At least 16 police cadets died on Sunday after a suicide bomber sneaked into the courtyard where they were training in Swat’s main town of Mingora and detonated his explosives, local government official Atifur Rehman said. It was the deadliest attack since an army offensive ended Taliban rule there.
Investigators later sifted through the blackened wreckage in the courtyard littered with body parts, shredded uniforms and police berets.
Authorities were looking into reports the attacker may have donned a uniform and slipped into the station posing as one of the dozens of recruits, Deputy Inspector General Idrees Khan of the district police said.
“We are investigating whether the bomber climbed over the wall of the police station, or whether he was already present among the police cadets,” Khan said.
He blamed the attack on a decision to relax a daily curfew in the area for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, and police quickly blocked off roads and ordered residents back indoors.
The army’s offensive to take back the area was its largest in years after periodic peace deals with the militants. The Taliban’s takeover of parts of Swat, a former tourist enclave, about two years ago became a symbol of their expansion in the mostly Muslim country of 175 million.
Pakistan’s army says it is restoring order to the valley and surrounding areas, but Sunday’s attack indicated that while the Taliban may no longer be able to impose their harsh interpretation of Islam there, life is far from normal for the hundreds of thousands who are now returning after fleeing the army’s fierce three months of fighting to wrest back control.
Provincial Minister Bashir Ahmed Bilour blamed the Taliban for the suicide attack and said Pakistanis must be “mentally prepared” for more bombings until the Taliban are crushed.
The other blast on Sunday ripped through a line of trucks ferrying fuel to NATO troops in Afghanistan, setting several oil tankers ablaze at a backed-up border crossing in southwestern Baluchistan province, police said.
The blast appeared to be the second terrorist attack in a week to target a border crossing.
Local police chief Hasan Sardar said flames and smoke were billowing into the sky on Sunday night as authorities struggled to control the blaze near the Chaman border crossing in Baluchistan province in Pakistan’s southwest.
Police officer Gul Mohammad said from the scene that a bomb was suspected. He said security officials had earlier found and defused another explosive device lying near one of the NATO tankers.
“This was another bomb, which we could not find in our earlier search, that exploded,” Mohammad said.
He said one driver who was asleep in his cab died, and 16 trucks were destroyed.
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