Suicide bomber kills Pakistani soldiers at army base

Thursday 10 February 2011



A teenage suicide bomber wearing a school uniform has killed 31 soldiers and wounded at least 40 in an attack on a military base in north-west Pakistan.



The bomber walked into a military base in Mardan, 70 miles north-west of Islamabad, and detonated explosives as soldiers were lining up for morning parade. Witnesses said he was wearing the uniform of a nearby school.



The attack on the headquarters of the Punjab regiment, which anchored a successful anti-Taliban operation in 2009, was the deadliest on a military target for months, reviving fears of a renewed Taliban campaign after a period of relative quiet.



Militants have recently stepped up attacks on police stations around the provincial capital, Peshawar, at one point mounting four assaults in a week. Army installations are more heavily guarded, and the ease with which the militant struck the Mardan base appears to expose a major security lapse.



The base is close to the Mohmand tribal area, where security forces are engaged in a major anti-Taliban operation that displaced at least 25,000 people in recent weeks, according to the UN.



No militant group claimed responsibility for the attack but the prime minister, Yusuf Raza Gilani, condemned it immediately. \"Such cowardly attacks cannot affect the morale of the security agencies and the resolve of the nation to eradicate terrorism,\" he said in a statement.



The attacker may also have been motivated by revenge. Soldiers from the Punjab regiment have been implicated in a flurry of extrajudicial executions of suspected militants in the north-west, one of which was captured in a video that circulated on the internet last year. The army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, under American pressure, ordered an investigation into the killings.



The prospect of a Taliban surge increases pressure on the government as it battles fires on several other fronts. Economists warn that the government is running a massive budget deficit which, if uncorrected, could result in soaring inflation, currency devaluation and major social unrest.



Meanwhile, relations with the US are at a low point as controversy swirls around an American official who shot dead two Pakistanis on a Lahore street in late January. The US says Raymond Davis, described as a \"technical adviser\", opened fire in self-defence during an attempted robbery and should be released under the laws of diplomatic immunity. But Pakistani officials say it is unclear whether Davis has immunity, with media speculation that he is a CIA agent, and several news reports quoting unnamed official suggesting the men he killed were Pakistani intelligence agents under orders to follow him. Davis is being held by Punjab police and the issue of immunity will be decided by a court.



The mystery deepened on Wednesday after a local television station aired a video clip that purported to show Davis being interviewed by Punjab police after the shootings.



The Taliban\'s strength in the \"settled areas\" of the turbulent north-west has waned in the past year since army operations in Swat and several tribal areas. But the militants retain control in their north Waziristan stronghold, where the US is steadily increasing pressure for a military drive.



The bullet-riddled bodies of two tribal police officials and a villager were found on Thursday near Mir Ali, along with a note that accused them of being American spies. The three men had been kidnapped in January and their bodies showed signs of torture, officials said.



American drone strikes in Waziristan, which surged in 2010, have stopped in recent weeks, with the last reported strike on 23 January


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