Pakistani cop, militant die in suicide attack

A Pakistani police commando escorts Lal Masjid chief cleric Abdul Aziz (second right) and his legal team upon their arrival for an appearance at an anti-terrorist court in Rawalpindi yesterday. Some 11 soldiers and 75 people, mainly militants, inside the mosque complex were killed during the raid on Islamabad’s Lal Masjid, which ended a month-long standoff with the mosque’s followers who wanted the imposition of Shariah in Pakistan


Pakistani cop, militant die in suicide attack
Published: Friday, 3 August, 2007, 01:57 AM Doha Time



LAHORE: An Islamic militant and a policeman died yesterday when officers foiled a suicide bombing at a Pakistani police school, the latest attack since the army stormed a radical Islamabad mosque.
The attack in the central city of Sargodha in Punjab province comes amid a wave of violence that has killed more than 200 people across the country in recent weeks, piling pressure on key US ally President Pervez Musharraf.
The Islamic militant tried to enter the police training facility with seven kilograms (15 pounds) of explosives strapped to his body as dozens of recruits ended their morning parade, Sargodha police chief Sheikh Omar said.
“He was a suicide bomber but police foiled his attempt,” Omar said, adding that casualties would have been “heavy” had he succeeded in entering the training area.
He said security officials at the gate of the school stopped the suspect, in his early 20s, who pulled out a pistol and opened fire, killing one police officer and wounding another. A hand grenade was also found on his corpse.
“A constable on duty shot him dead. His presence of mind saved many lives,” local police officer Nasar Hayat said.
“The bomber apparently had full details about the morning’s drill schedule but it was just by chance that the person in charge today called off the drill about five minutes early,” Hayat added.
Police said the attack appeared to be a “continuation” of attacks on police and the army in apparent revenge for the siege and storming of the pro-Taliban Red Mosque in the capital, in which more than 100 people died.
Fifteen people were killed on Friday when a suicide bomber attacked a group of policemen during fresh protests at the mosque.
In another incident yesterday, a small bomb placed under a cart exploded near a traffic police office in the industrial city of Gujranwala, near Lahore, wounding eight people, including four police, police said.
Pakistan’s military said that General Sir Richard Dannatt, chief of the general staff of the British Army, called on a senior army commander in Peshawar yesterday before visiting the restive tribal area bordering Afghanistan.
It said in a statement that Dannatt met with Corps Commander Lieutenant General Mohamed Masood Aslam at the Peshawar corps headquarters and later travelled to North Waziristan, in Islamist North West Frontier Province.
There, he was briefed by local government and military officials on steps being taken to curb extremism and terror-related activities in the region.
Fresh violence erupted in the tribal belt overnight, with militants firing six rockets at a security forces checkpost in the troubled Bajaur district which borders Afghanistan, security officials said.
Rebels also targeted a checkpost along the frontier in North Waziristan, they said. Neither attack caused casualties, they added.
A local lawmaker, Nek Zaman Haqqani, in a statement urged the government to “stop treating tribesmen as enemies.”
He said 18 people killed in clashes in the area on Tuesday were tribesmen and not militants, as the army had claimed.
Religious scholars and Muslim clerics in Miranshah, the main town of North Waziristan, said they would launch a protest campaign today to press their demand for the withdrawal of troops from regional checkposts.
Black flags would fly in markets and on rooftops, and they would wear black armbands until their demand was met, local cleric Sadar Abdul Rehman said, adding that troops should be deployed only at the border.
The area has seen some of the bloodiest attacks in the past month since pro-Taliban militants scrapped a 10-month-old peace deal with the government on July 15, days after the carnage at the Red Mosque. – AFP