Violence Escalates in Pakistan
Violence escalated on Thursday in Pakistan, with a suicide bomber targeting a police office in Islamabad - no one was killed, but several were injured - Pakistan’s air force striking at militants in the country’s tribal region, and Al Qaeda and / or Taliban terrorists setting off a roadside bomb, killing several police officers, their prisoners and innocent children.
Especially the last story is quite sad: the terrorists set off the bomb when a police car drove by. Several prisoners and officers were killed by the blast.
They were not the only ones, however, who were near the bomb at the time of the blast. According to Pakistani sources, a schoolbus filled with children was also driving by the bomb when it exploded. Four children, and seven others, were killed.
The Pakistan’s government decision to step up attacks against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the country’s tribal region, which is hard to control by government forces, has resulted in a major offensive from said militants in return. They have bombed several places in Pakistan, and Pakistan intelligence officials fear more bombings will take place in the coming days and weeks.
Meanwhile, the air-strikes against militants in the region border Afghanistan have been successful in so far that quite some high ranking militants were killed in recent days. In one such strike, the Afghan military tried to kill an important militant leader, commander Mullah Fazlullah, who emerged at the head of a revolt in the northwest valley of Swat late last year.
Although 20 of his followers were killed in the strike, Fazlullah himself escaped.
The offensive at the Taliban and Al Qaeda is going reasonably well, according to Pakistani government sources, but they continue to worry that their people will have to pay a very high price for fighting back against the spreading influence and terror exercised by these militants nonetheless.
