John
08-23-2010, 03:00 PM
A suicide bomber blew himself up at a Pakistani mosque Monday, killing at least 20 people including a prominent local cleric in the lawless district of South Waziristan, officials said.
It was the first significant suicide attack in Pakistan since August 4 and comes with the country battling to cope with the fallout of devastating floods that have affected up to a fifth of the country and hit 20 million people.
The apparent target was cleric Noor Mohammed, a member of radical Sunni Muslim party Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, which has been linked to the Taliban, and a former lawmaker.
He was greeting members of the congregation in the town of Wana after prayers when the bomber struck, officials told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The mosque was badly damaged in the blast, where local residents were busy trying to recover people from the rubble amid fears that the death toll could rise further.
"The death toll in the suicide attack has risen to 20, with more than 40 people wounded," said one of the officials, fearing the death toll may rise.
Syed Noor, a nephew of the cleric, confirmed that his uncle had been killed.
A health official in a paramilitary hospital in Wana said condition of most of the wounded was critical.
"We have received 14 injured but there condition was very critical," the official told AFP requesting anonymity.
Locals described the cleric as an influential figure who had several times acted as a negotiator between the Taliban and the Pakistani government, but was opposed to the presence of Uzbek militants, providing support to dislodge them.
Wana is the main town in South Waziristan, one of Pakistan's seven districts in the lawless tribal belt on the Afghan border. Pakistan last year waged a major operation to flush out the Pakistani Taliban from South Waziristan.
Washington has branded the rugged tribal area -- part of which has now been hit by Pakistan's catastrophic flooding -- a global headquarters of Al-Qaeda and the most dangerous place on Earth.
Bombs and attacks blamed on Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants have hit soldiers, government officials and civilians across nuclear-armed Pakistan since government troops besieged a radical mosque in Islamabad in July 2007.
Such attacks have killed more than 3,574 people in the past three years, concentrated largely in the northwest and border areas with Afghanistan, where 141,000 US and NATO troops have been fighting the Taliban for nine years.
Waziristan came under renewed scrutiny when Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-American charged over an attempted bombing in New York on May 1, allegedly told US interrogators he went to the region for terrorist training.
US forces are waging a covert drone war against Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked commanders in the tribal belt, where the latest such strike killed four militants in North Waziristan on Saturday.
Elsewhere in the tribal belt, a landmine blast killed seven people as Pakistani tribal elders met in the Khumas village of Kurram district on Monday, administrator Syed Musaddiq Shah told AFP.
It was not immediately clear whether the blast was an intended attack or whether the ordinance had exploded accidentally.
Another administration official said seven people were injured in the blast, which occurred during a jirga, or meeting, between two tribes over a dispute about an office boy's job at a public school built on common land.
Kurram has for three years been a flashpoint for violence between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.
Shiites account for around 20 percent of Pakistan's mostly Sunni Muslim population of 160 million.
More than 4,000 people have died in outbreaks of sectarian violence between the groups since the late 1980s.
Source - Yahoo.
It was the first significant suicide attack in Pakistan since August 4 and comes with the country battling to cope with the fallout of devastating floods that have affected up to a fifth of the country and hit 20 million people.
The apparent target was cleric Noor Mohammed, a member of radical Sunni Muslim party Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, which has been linked to the Taliban, and a former lawmaker.
He was greeting members of the congregation in the town of Wana after prayers when the bomber struck, officials told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The mosque was badly damaged in the blast, where local residents were busy trying to recover people from the rubble amid fears that the death toll could rise further.
"The death toll in the suicide attack has risen to 20, with more than 40 people wounded," said one of the officials, fearing the death toll may rise.
Syed Noor, a nephew of the cleric, confirmed that his uncle had been killed.
A health official in a paramilitary hospital in Wana said condition of most of the wounded was critical.
"We have received 14 injured but there condition was very critical," the official told AFP requesting anonymity.
Locals described the cleric as an influential figure who had several times acted as a negotiator between the Taliban and the Pakistani government, but was opposed to the presence of Uzbek militants, providing support to dislodge them.
Wana is the main town in South Waziristan, one of Pakistan's seven districts in the lawless tribal belt on the Afghan border. Pakistan last year waged a major operation to flush out the Pakistani Taliban from South Waziristan.
Washington has branded the rugged tribal area -- part of which has now been hit by Pakistan's catastrophic flooding -- a global headquarters of Al-Qaeda and the most dangerous place on Earth.
Bombs and attacks blamed on Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants have hit soldiers, government officials and civilians across nuclear-armed Pakistan since government troops besieged a radical mosque in Islamabad in July 2007.
Such attacks have killed more than 3,574 people in the past three years, concentrated largely in the northwest and border areas with Afghanistan, where 141,000 US and NATO troops have been fighting the Taliban for nine years.
Waziristan came under renewed scrutiny when Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-American charged over an attempted bombing in New York on May 1, allegedly told US interrogators he went to the region for terrorist training.
US forces are waging a covert drone war against Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked commanders in the tribal belt, where the latest such strike killed four militants in North Waziristan on Saturday.
Elsewhere in the tribal belt, a landmine blast killed seven people as Pakistani tribal elders met in the Khumas village of Kurram district on Monday, administrator Syed Musaddiq Shah told AFP.
It was not immediately clear whether the blast was an intended attack or whether the ordinance had exploded accidentally.
Another administration official said seven people were injured in the blast, which occurred during a jirga, or meeting, between two tribes over a dispute about an office boy's job at a public school built on common land.
Kurram has for three years been a flashpoint for violence between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.
Shiites account for around 20 percent of Pakistan's mostly Sunni Muslim population of 160 million.
More than 4,000 people have died in outbreaks of sectarian violence between the groups since the late 1980s.
Source - Yahoo.