Two Deadly Days Of Bombings In Pakistan
This story was written by Farhan Bokhari, reporting for CBS News in Pakistan.
Security conditions in north-western Pakistan further aggravated on Sunday when at least 12 Pakistani security troops were killed and dozens were wounded in bomb blasts and exchange of fire.
The attacks on Sunday in Matta, a town in Swat district which is a stronghold of hard line pro-Taliban Islamists, followed Saturday's suicide attack in a region along the Afghan border which killed at least 24 of Pakistan's paramilitary troops.
Pakistani intelligence officials on Sunday said the two attacks appeared to be part of an al Qaeda backed campaign to sharply escalate violence in the country's north western regions where sympathy for Islamists runs high. The attacks follow last week's storming of a Taliban-style mosque in the centre of Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, after months of standoff between the government of Pakistan's pro-U.S. ruler General Pervez Musharraf and hard line Islamists.
Ayman Al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda's second highest ranking leader in a subsequent video message condemned the attack. Soon after Al-Zawahiri's video was released, one Pakistani security official told CBS NEWS, the message may have contained a hidden message to al Qaeda's cells and the group's sympathizers in Pakistan to retaliate with attacks on government targets.
Pakistan's security officials on Saturday warned against the danger of more al Qaeda-backed suicide attacks across the country, as the death toll mounted from a suicide attack in the country's tribal regions along the Afghan border.
The attack on a paramilitary convoy in the north Waziristan region killed 24 soldiers while more than two dozen were injured, when a car packed with explosives rammed into a truck.
"This attack indicates the danger of more attacks being planned" said a senior Pakistani official in Islamabad who spoke to CBS News on the condition of anonymity. The attack was linked by Pakistani officials to al Qaeda.
The lal (red) mosque and its adjoining women's seminary known as Jamia-e-Hifza were at the center of months of standoff with the government after they threatened to enforce Taliban-type Islamic laws. The conflict was aggravated when the Islamists from the mosque kidnapped six Chinese women and a Chinese man in June on charges of running a brothel. The kidnapping apparently broke the patience of Pakistan's military regime which has strived to build closer ties with China – widely regarded as the country's closest strategic ally.
Other Pakistani officials warned of the danger of a vicious al Qaeda campaign through staging attacks to destabilize General Musharraf's government. The warnings come as controversy rages over the death toll from the military's attack on the mosque and the seminary. The official death toll of the militants has been put at around 80, while Islamist leaders claim hundreds died in the event.
"This bombing does not bode well for internal security conditions in Pakistan. A sustained campaign can seriously jeopardize the standing of this government," said another Pakistani security official who asked not to be named.
On Thursday, in his first television speech since the attack on the mosque, General Musharraf promised to step up his government's campaign against Islamic militancy. He vowed to stop any further attempt to create other Taliban-style mosques in the country.
Western governments including the U.S. have supported General Musharraf in his actions but diplomats have warned that Musharraf needs to draw more support from Pakistan's opposition politicians in order to build a popular national consensus for fighting militancy. The General faces growing opposition calls to step down and allow Pakistan's return to full democracy, almost eight years after he seized power in a bloodless military coup.