Over forty people were killed in North West Frontier Province on Sunday in a surge of militant violence, which officials said could be aimed at avenging the commando assault on Lal Masjid. Early, 14 people, 11 of them paramilitary soldiers, were killed in a suicide-bomb ambush on a patrol in the Swat valley in NWFP.
Hours later, a suicide bomber targeted a police recruiting centre in Dera Ismail Khan, in the same province, killing 26, many of them young men taking a police entrance exam, police said. Dozens were wounded. Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Sherpao said the two attacks could be a militant response to the Lal Masjid assault.
"It's very difficult to stop suicide attacks," Sherpao told a private TV channel. Security analysts had expressed fears of a militant backlash over the Lal Masjid assault.
Many of the militants at the mosque and many of the religious students who studied at the complex, were believed to have been from the NWFP. In the Dera Ismail Khan attack young men were waiting to have their documents checked before the police entrance exam when the bomber struck, witnesses said.
"He was standing in a line with the recruits and all of a sudden blew himself up," said police official Inayatullah Amjad. In the Swat valley attack, two suicide bombers rammed cars into a security force convoy as a roadside bomb went off. Three civilians were also killed, said military spokesman Major-General Waheed Arshad. About 30 soldiers were wounded.
Meanwhile, President General Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz have condemned the terrorist attacks in Swat and Dera Ismail Khan and urged the nation to work together with the law enforcement agencies to combat the scourge of extremism and militancy.
In his message, the President said that the dastardly acts of terrorism committed in Swat and DI Khan should be condemned by all sections of the society. He appealed to the people that the menace of extremism and militancy needed to be curbed by government with the cooperation of the people from all walks of life.
He said Pakistan could not afford to ignore the extremists and militants bent upon disrupting the progress and development of the country by derailing the economy through acts of terrorism.
Once again, the President said, "I appeal to all Pakistanis to extend maximum cooperation to the law enforcement agencies to root out extremism and militancy."
Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz condemning the incidents said such cowardly acts of terrorists against innocent citizens could not deter the government from its resolve to fight out extremism and terrorism in all its forms and manifestation.
He directed the law enforcement agencies to leave no stone unturned to bring to the book the culprits of terrorist attacks, which killed dozens of innocent people in Swat and DI Khan on Sunday.
The President and the Prime Minister also prayed to Allah Almighty to rest the departed souls in eternal peace and grant the bereaved families the courage and fortitude to bear the loss of their near and dear ones in the heinous acts of terrorism.-PR