Omer Farooq Khan | TNN
Shabqadar (Pakistan): In the first retaliatory attack by the Pakistani Taliban since the US Navy SEALs killed the al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden, two suicide bombers struck a paramilitary training centre in northwest Pakistan on Friday, killing at least 90 people, most of them were recruits who leaving for the weekend to meet their parents. The attack wounded more than 100 others.
The massive explosions targeted freshfaced recruits in their late teens training for Pakistan's Frontier Constabulary, a force often deployed in the semi-autonomous tribal areas. The training centre is in Shabqadar town of Charsadda district, about an hour's drive from Peshawar, the restive capital of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.
Charsadda borders Pakistan's volatile Mohmand tribal region. The army recently launched an offensive there to clear the area of militants.
The Tehreek-e-Talban Pakistan (TTP), a homegrown arm of the Afghan Taliban, claimed responsibility for the bombings, saying it was the first revenge for the killing of bin Laden.
"This was the first revenge for Osama's martyrdom. Wait for bigger attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan," said Ehsanullah Ehsan, a TTP spokesman from Orakzai Agency.
"What kind of revenge is this! How many Americans have been killed by these terrorists? If you want to avenge the killing of Osama, go after the killers," said Bashir Ahmed Bilour, a senior provincial minister. "Why are these beasts targeting innocent people? These young boys were going back to see their parents. They were Muslims. They were Pashtuns," he said. "This is not Islam."
The bombings took place early in the morning as the cadets came out of the school gate to board mini-buses for a 10-day leave after completing their course.
According to police, the attackers came on a motorcycle, with the first bomber striking at about 6:05am just outside the training centre. As other recruits rushed to the scene to rescue the wounded, another bomber standing nearby ran into the middle of the rescuers and detonated his strapped explosives, killing dozens more, an officer said.
Seventy-three of the dead were cadets of Frontier Constabulary and the remaining civilians. Civilian casualties could have been much higher had the blasts occurred an hour or two later when the markets nearby would open, said Jehanzeb Khan, a senior police officer. He said that 16 vehicles and 20 shops were also destroyed in the blasts.
"I was sitting in a van waiting for my colleagues. We were in plain clothes and we were happy we were going to see our families," said Ahmad Ali, a wounded paramilitary policeman, who was admitted to a local hospital.
"I heard someone shouting 'Allah u Akbar' (God is great) and then I heard a huge blast. I was hit by something in my back shoulder."
"In the meantime, I heard another blast and I jumped out of the van. I felt that I was injured and bleeding."
Most of the injured were shifted to Peshawar's main Lady Reading Hospital. The death toll may rise as 47 of the injured were critical, Abdul Hameed Afridi, chief executive o the Lady Reading Hospital told TOI.
Emotional scenes were witnessed outside the police training centre as parents of some dead cadets arrived.
"Your father has invited guests tomorrow to celebrate your successful course completion. Now what will we tell them. Oh God! You would have taken my life instead of my innocent son," screamed the shattered mother of 19-year-old Adnan.
A police officer, requesting anonymity, said such attacks cannot be planned on the spur of the moment. "Certainly, they (militants) have an effective networking and some insiders may be leaking information to them. The real success against the militants can only be possible if we succeed to uncover the hidden hands on whose information these militants plan their attacks," he said.
More than 30,000 people have been killed in Pakistan since it joined the war against terror. Many attacks in recent years have targeted Pakistani security forces and more than 3,000 soldiers have been killed in counter-insurgency operations in the northwest.
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