MINGORA, Pakistan - A suicide bomber targeting Pakistani security forces set off a blast that ripped through a busy market in the northwestern Swat Valley on yesterday, killing at least eight people and wounding dozens of others, officials and witnesses said.
Related:
"Now stop and think here for a moment. All revolutions depend on public support. Revolutionaries try to first win the people before they take on the government. So, no revolutionary goes out and murders civilians in cold blood. Did Washington and his men just mow down a marketplace of their fellow colonials for the heck of it? No, they did not. Washington and the Founding Fathers knew that their revolution to build a new country needed the support of those who would live in that country. This is true for every revolution in history. Therefore, these acts of terror being blamed on the insurgency must all be fakes, committed by intelligence agencies working for the governments to be blamed on the insurgents in order to destroy public support for the revolution." -- Wake the Flock Up
It is what I say EVERY DAY!The attack in the district capital of Mingora was the latest violence in the restive border region with Afghanistan where the military has been waging offensives against Taliban militants who have been fighting back, often with homemade bombs.
Yesterday’s explosion occurred at a downtown intersection surrounded by small shops and stalls as at least two vehicles carrying security forces passed by, officials and witnesses said.
The blast ripped out shop fronts and blew out the windows of cars on the street , television footage from the scene showed. Several cars were gutted, and a fire engine rushed to extinguish a blaze ignited by the explosion.
Witness Shiraz Khan said he heard people crying out for help immediately after the blast.
“It was a suicide attack. Its target was security forces,’’ said Major Mishtaq Khan, the army spokesman in Swat. Two soldiers were among the 37 people wounded, he said.
And because government says so it's true?
Dr. Lal Noor, head of the Saidu Sharif Hospital in Mingora, said the bodies of eight people killed were brought to the facility.
Swat Police Chief Mohammad Idrees said items found at the scene including parts of a cellphone and a watch were believed to have come from the suicide bomber.
Oh, well, who can question it now?
The Pakistani military launched a major offensive in the mountainous Swat Valley early last year after peace deals with local Taliban collapsed and the militants took control of parts of the region, just four hours’ drive from the national capital, Islamabad.
The military took back the Swat Valley by mid-2009, but sporadic violence has continued.
The Swat offensive drew strong praise from Washington, which has long urged Pakistan to do more to combat militants in the lawless tribal belt along the Afghan border and to root out Al Qaeda militants believed to be sheltering there.
Pakistan followed up the Swat campaign with an offensive in the nearby South Waziristan tribal zone.
In recent months, the Taliban have been weakened by a campaign of CIA missile strikes from unmanned drone aircraft in the border region that have killed some senior leaders. This month, Pakistan also arrested three senior Afghan Taliban leaders - including the group’s number two commander - and rounded up dozens of other militant suspects, in raids sometimes carried out with US intelligence or other assistance.
Analysts are divided about whether the crackdown signals a shift in Pakistani policy in which security forces are finally going after militants who are thought to have long enjoyed sanctuary in the country, or if the arrests are part of a Pakistani strategy to position the country as a major player in any peace talks between the Taliban and the US-backed Afghan government.
In another part of the restive northwest, the decapitated bodies of two Sikhs were found almost a month after they were kidnapped in the Khyber tribal region, officials said yesterday. Local government official Jawed Khan said the family of one of the two men told authorities that kidnappers had demanded $175,000 in ransom for his return.
So it was organized crime, not "terrorists," huh?
Sikhs are a minority in Islamic Pakistan.
And CUI BONO, readers!? Come on!
--more--"
RESISTANCE IN INDIA -- A Sikh protester shouted slogans as tires burned during a demonstration against the Taliban and the Pakistani government yesterday in Jammu. The protest followed the discovery of decapitated bodies of two Sikhs who were kidnapped in Pakistan's Khyber tribal region nearly a month ago.
Related:
"The Taliban are not known for launching sectarian attacks"
Sick of the AGENDA-PUSHING OBFUSCATIONS and LIES yet, readers?
And consider this:
"It is now the focal point for seemingly bottomless Kashmiri rage at the continuing presence of the roughly 500,000-strong Indian security force here.... a full-scale occupation..... They remain even though violence.... has fallen to its lowest point in two decades....
Also see: India's Mass Graves
And yet all I ever see in my paper is Muslim "terrorists!"
