Eleven including six soldiers killed in Pakistan suicide attack

FE Team | Published: July 05, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

MIRANSHAH, (Pakistan), July 4 (AFP): A suicide car bomber attacked a Pakistani military convoy in a troubled tribal region bordering Afghanistan Wednesday, killing 11 people including six soldiers, security officials said.
The incident comes after clerics at a radical Islamabad mosque vowed suicide attacks in revenge for clashes with security forces which left 16 people dead including eight Islamist students.
The bomber rammed his explosives-laden vehicle into the convoy near a check post at Mir Ali, a town in North Waziristan region, two officials in the area said on condition of anonymity.
"The suicide bomber was blown to pieces and his car was totally destroyed" one of the officials told AFP. The targeted military vehicle was also badly damaged.
Five soldiers and four civilian bystanders were killed instantly by the blast while one civilian and one soldier died later in hospital, the official said.
Two civilians with serious shrapnel wounds were still in the hospital.
Chief Pakistani military spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad said he had so far received reports that four soldiers were killed and six injured, two critically, in an attack in Mir Ali.
"It is not immediately clear what caused the blast near the military vehicle," he said.
Officials said there was no immediate link with the pro- Taliban Red Mosque in Islamabad, which called for suicide attacks on Tuesday to avenge the "blood of martyrs."
The mosque has close ties to the tribal areas and many of its students hail from the rugged region.
Insurgents continue to target government and military installations despite a peace agreement in North Waziristan last year between the authorities and pro- Taliban rebels.
Hundreds of foreign Al-Qaeda militants fled into Pakistan's tribal belt in late 2001 after US-led forces ousted the Taliban regime from Afghanistan for hosting Osama bin Laden and his allies.
President Pervez Musharraf, a key US ally, held a special meeting on Monday to discuss a new strategy to curb "Talibanisation" along the Afghan border, government officials said.
Meanwhile: Pakistan's government set a deadline of 11:00 am (0600 GMT) Wednesday for the leaders of a hardline mosque to surrender after clashes that have left 16 people dead, the information secretary said.
Anwar Mehmood told a news conference in Islamabad that the deadline was for the "mosque administration to surrender, hand over their weapons" to troops outside the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque.
"At the moment law enforcement agencies are exercising restraint... they are not going to fire until they are fired at," he said. "The men who surrender will be ensured safety."
Troops were enforcing a shoot-on-sight curfew imposed early Wednesday on the area around the mosque.
Mehmood said that some women and children had left one of the two religious schools attached to the controversial mosque "and they are being treated with refreshments."
Information Minister Mohammad Ali Durrani said that the departure of the women and children was a "positive development."
"Efforts are underway to force (the men in the mosque) to surrender without any confrontation," he told AFP. "Law enforcement agencies are there around the mosque and the seminary to face any eventuality."