Blast At Pakistan Mosque Kills At Least 30
Updated: 10:35 a.m. ET.
An explosion at a mosque killed 30 people during Friday prayers, while a roadside bomb killed four soldiers in Pakistan's tribal belt - the latest violence to rock the country's northwest as the army says it is beating back the Taliban in the Swat Valley.
The violence occurred as U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke met with top Pakistani officials after evaluating the plight of some of the nearly 3 million Pakistanis made refugees by the Swat offensive. Hundreds trying to return home to Swat on Friday were stopped by troops.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack on the Sunni Muslim mosque in the Haya Gai area of Upper Dir, a rough and tumble district next to Swat.
Upper Dir district coordination officer Atif-ur-Rehman told The Associated Press that a suicide bomber was involved. It was unclear if sectarian differences played a role.
Police Chief Ejaz Ahmad said the confirmed death toll was 30, but "there are more body parts, which may make another four to six bodies."
"When it is final, it should be somewhere 35 plus, maybe close to 40," Ahmad told The Associated Press by phone. He said some of the 40 wounded were in critical condition.
Few details were available from the area, whose far flung nature, combined with rain, hampered rescue efforts, officials said.
The attack is part of a wave of violence along the Afghan border in recent days just as the army says it is close to defeating Taliban militants in the Swat Valley.
Pakistani leaders insist they are serious about wiping out militancy in Swat, a one-time tourist haven that largely fell under Taliban control over the past two years. The U.S. backs the operation and sees it as a test of the government's resolve in taking on al Qaeda and Taliban militants along the Afghan border region.
The generally broad public support in Pakistan for the operation, however, could falter if militant violence spikes in reaction. There already have been attacks in major cities, such as Peshawar and Lahore, that officials suspect were revenge by the militants for Swat.
Meanwhile, four soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in South Waziristan, according to two intelligence officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media on the record. South Waziristan is a tribal region bordering Afghanistan that some suspect will be the next site of Pakistani military action against the Taliban.
Also Friday, a parcel bomb went off at a lawmaker's home in the southern city of Karachi, wounding the politician and three others, said Ashfaq Alam, a senior police officer. The bomb, concealed in a diary, was low intensity and the injuries were not severe, he said.
The apparent target, Yaqoob Bizenjo, is a member of the National Assembly representing southwestern Baluchistan province - a suspected base for the Afghan Taliban. Baluchistan has also been the scene of a long-running low-level insurgency that wants more autonomy for the region and a greater share of money from its natural resources.
Army Blocks Displaced Swat Civilians From Returning Home
An Associated Press reporter saw hundreds of Swat residents at Got Koto, an area just outside the valley, on Friday. The residents had heard reports the government would lift a curfew in the main town of Mingora to let them go back. But security forces on a main road stopped them, saying they could not allow civilians back in yet.
"I want nothing from the government. I only want that we should be allowed to go back to our Mingora city," said Dilawar Khan, 40, as his four children and two wives stood by him under the shade of a tree. Khan and his family had been staying at a relief camp in Mardan.
Zubayda Bibi, one of his wives, complained about conditions at the camps, located in areas that are much warmer than what Swat residents are accustomed to. "We can no longer sit at the camps where there is only dust, diseases and heat," she said. Even if damaged, "home is better than anything."
The army launched its latest operation in Swat about month ago after the militants undermined a peace deal brokered earlier this year by infiltrating a neighboring district just 60 miles from the capital, Islamabad. That truce, in which the government agreed to impose Islamic law in the valley and surrounding areas, was mediated by Islamist cleric Sufi Muhammad.
The military said security forces detained Muhammad's deputy Maulana Alam, his spokesman Ameer Izzat Khan, and another aide, Syed Wahab, during a raid Thursday to nab suspected militants at a religious school in a district near Swat.
Officers seized eight hand grenades and other munitions at the site, the army statement said. Muhammad's whereabouts were not immediately clear, but various officials told the AP he was not detained.
The army's top spokesman has estimated it will take at least another two months before the Swat Valley is cleared of militants. The military expects to stay in the region at least another year, largely because the area lacks a solid police presence.
During a briefing with commanders Thursday, army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani said the tide in Swat had "decisively turned" and that major population centers and roads leading to the valley were rid of Taliban resistance. But he said security forces were still hunting top Taliban commanders and that isolated incidents of violence would likely continue.
Holbrooke Promises Aid To Swat Refugees
U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke visited a couple of relief camps Thursday. In conversations in tents and under thatch-roofed buildings, Holbrooke stressed that Washington's role in the crisis was to help the refugees, not the military - a message aimed at quelling deep suspicions in Pakistan that the Swat Valley campaign was launched at Washington's behest.
5064836Holbrooke, appointed in January as U.S. special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, flew by helicopter to two hot and dusty camps housing some of the worst-off refugees, and talked with residents in group meetings and during visits to a handful of sun-baked, sedan-sized tents that house entire families.
"We hope you can go back (home) soon, but we don't know," Holbrooke told refugees in Shaikh Shahzad camp near Mardan town. "You will go back soon, God willing."
Unprompted, Holbrooke said several times that making conditions safe enough for refugees to return was Pakistan's responsibility. "It's up to the Pakistani army to give you security, that is not our job," he said.
The U.S. has pledged $110 million to help refugees feeling the Swat offensive.
Holbrooke was warmly received, with residents thanking him for coming even as they complained about the conditions.
"Our crops are destroyed, and we are getting nothing here," Abdul Sajid, a farmer from the Buner district just south of Swat, told Holbrooke. "It is coming, the food, but it is not good. I am not satisfied with the conditions at the camp. We need your help."
Holbrooke told refugees the U.S. government has asked Congress to approve another $200 million in humanitarian aid for them, on top of $110 million already promised.
He said that total was more than had been pledged by the rest of the world's governments combined, and that Washington wanted other countries to do more.
Pakistani officials say some 3 million people have fled the fighting, with the vast majority relying on friends and family for food and accommodation.
More than 160,000 are living in about 20 camps just south of the battle zone, such as Shaikh Shahzad, where more than 8,000 people stay in rows of dirty white tents pitched in hard-dirt fields. Communal kitchens cook basic meals of rice and bread, and residents lug water in plastic containers.
"My house was crushed by shelling," said Nasir Wahab, a cell phone seller who fled to the camp with his wife and five children from Mingora, Swat's largest town, two weeks ago. "We have no money, no work. The food is just rice and bread. We have no bed, no mattress."
Nearby, his son Abdul Wahab loaded 20-pound bags of wheat from a three-wheeled motorbike into the family's tent, furnished only with an electric fan and two woven plastic ground mats.
Anti-U.S. feeling was evident among some in the camp.
"There is a perception among people about America that what it is doing leaves its impact on the Muslims. It is making us its slave, but we are not slaves. We are Muslims and Muslims don't accept anyone's slavery," Swat area refugee Farid Khan told AP Television News after Holbrooke had left.
Juma Gul, another refugee from Swat, said those who wanted to help deserved thanks.
"I think anyone who thinks about our welfare, he is our friend and he is everything for us. The one who does not care for our welfare and intends to harm us, he is our enemy," he said.
The United Nations warned Thursday that food and essential medicine in the camps may run out by early July if more money is not given to their relief efforts for the Pakistani refugees. The U.N. humanitarian affairs organization said it had received $119 million of the $543 million it has forecast it needs to care for refugees until the end of the year.
"The pipeline of food supplies could run out at the end of June if funds are not urgently and significantly contributed," the group said in a statement.