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Death toll in Pakistan suicide attack rises to 42: minister

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Islamabad, Nov 8, IRNA
Pakistan-Attack
Death toll in a suicide attack in an army camp in a Pakistani town has reached 42, the country's Information Minister said on Wednesday.

Muhammad Ali Durrani told a news conference in Islamabad that 20 other recruit soldiers were injured in the attack.

The attack was carried out at a military fort at the town of Dargai, some 90 kilometers northeast of Peshawar at 8:30 a.m., when they were busy in routine exercises, according to an army statement.

A caller, who claimed to be speaking on behalf of local Taliban, said Pakistani Taliban carried out the attack.

President Pervez Musharraf condemned the attack and ordered the intelligence agents to immediately hold investigation into the attack.

Musharraf told a gathering of lawmakers that those behind the attack would not be spared.

The injured were shifted to military hospitals in Mardan, a Bajor city in the area and Peshawar, the provincial capital.

The security forces blocked the main road and shifted bodies and injured to local and hospital in Peshawar.

This is the first ever attack on army at the town of Dargai, located in Pakistan's provincial tribal area.

Security forces and pro-government tribal elders have been targeted in Waziristan tribal region in the past.

Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherapo linked the suicide bombing with the last week air strike on a religious school in the tribal region of Bajur, which had killed 80 people.

President Musharraf says all those killed in the air strike were militants but the opposition religious groups say they were madrassa students.

A man, who identified himself as Abu Kaleem Ahmed Ansari, phoned journalists in Peshawar and said local Taliban had carried out the attack.

Ansar, whose name was never heard in the past, said that the attack was aimed at taking revenge of Bajur air strike.

Information Minister Durrani lashed out at those politicians who had criticized the Bajur air strike.

ISLAMIC GROUPS: Jamaat-e-Islami in its reaction termed the attack as a tragic national loss and a very serious national calamity.

Government's policy in respect of counter terrorism has totally failed and insecurity and lawlessness have increased manifold.

All claims about the writ of the Government look like a hoax and self-deception, Jamaat deputy chief Senator Professor Khurshid Ahmad said.

Pervez Musharraf's Government and his tactics have totally failed and the only honorable course left for him is to resign and a government of national consensus be formed to face this grave situation, he said.

He observed that President Bush had lost the virtual referendum in the USA and Musharraf had failed in Pakistan, he said.

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