A BOMBING in Lahore has killed at least 43 people – the fifth terrorist attack this week as extremists in Pakistan demonstrate their continued ability to strike.
The bloodiest terrorist strike in the country this year was carried out yesterday by two attackers who walked into a busy market in a high-security military district and blew themselves up. The target appeared to be passing military vehicles but most of the victims were civilians.
Shops in the market were ripped apart, with children crossing the road and people waiting at a bus stop among the victims.
Lahore police chief Parvaiz Rathore said about 10 soldiers were killed and 100 injured.
“There were about 10 to 15 seconds between the blasts. Both were suicide attacks,” a senior local government official, Sajjad Bhutta, said at the site. “The maximum preventative measures were being taken but these people find support from somewhere.”
The bombers struck at 1pm, about the time of Friday prayers, in the cantonment area, home to the local army garrison and one of Lahore’s most upmarket residential districts.
Lahore is the bustling cultural hub of Pakistan. It is the capital of the eastern Punjab province, Pakistan’s most densely populated area and its political heartland.
The bombings were followed in the evening by three smaller blasts in a residential area across town. They caused panic but damage was reported to be minor.
The authorities repeated their regular assertion that the Taliban and other extremist groups had been defeated. The provincial law minister, Rana Sanaullah, said: “We broke their networks. That’s why they have not been able to strike for a considerable time.”
However it was the second bombing this week in Lahore. A car bombing on Monday at a police interrogation centre killed 14. Other attacks this week included a gun and grenade assault on a US Christian aid agency’s office in the north west, killing six of its staff, all Pakistani nationals.
“They [the extremists] are trying to project their power, telling the government that they are still alive,” said analyst Imtiaz Gul, author of The al-Qaeda Connection. “They are still far from broken. It’s going to be a long haul.”
In 2009 Lahore was dragged into the bloody insurgency in Pakistan, which claimed about 3,000 lives last year, with a series of spectacular attacks, including a gun assault on the visiting Sri Lankan cricket team. The last major attack in Lahore was in December when a market was bombed, killing at least 49 people.
The launch of a military offensive in South Waziristan on the Afghan border, the base of the Pakistani Taliban, in October last year was accompanied by a vicious spate of terrorist reprisals but the country had been relatively peaceful so far this year. – (Guardian service)