Fourth militant attack in days kills 41 in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Militants from the heart of Pakistan teamed up with Taliban insurgents from the remote Afghan border region to carry out the bold weekend assault on army headquarters, the army said Monday — an ominous development as the fourth major attack in just over a week killed 41 people at a northwestern market.

The prospect of militant networks from across Pakistan cooperating more closely could complicate a planned offensive against the Taliban in their northwest stronghold, a push seen as vital to the success of the faltering U.S. war effort in Afghanistan.

New details about the alleged leader of the 22-hour attack on army headquarters less than 10 miles from the Pakistani capital underscored the bonds among the groups. Officials said Mohammad Aqeel, a former member of the army medical corps, had ties to the Taliban as well as to two al-Qaida-linked militant groups in the Punjab, Pakistan’s dominant and most populous province.

The Punjab connection is significant because it means the Taliban may be spreading their influence beyond their traditional base of ethnic Pashtuns in tribal areas on both sides of the Afghan border. Ethnic Punjabis, by contrast, dominate the army and the major institutions of the Pakistani state. Al-Qaida is primarily Arab.

The Taliban said their Punjab faction carried out the attack in that province — the first time they had referred to such an outfit — and vowed to activate cells outside the Pashtun heartland of the lawless frontier region.

“This was our first small effort and a present to the Pakistani and American governments,” Taliban spokesman Azam Tariq told The Associated Press. Tariq said the group was seeking vengeance for the killing of its leader in a CIA drone strike.

Given the nearly weekly attacks in Pakistan over the last three years, the threat of a nationwide bombing campaign was credible. The Pakistani Taliban have made outlandish claims in the past, however, and stand to benefit from exaggerating their reach.

Monday’s suicide bombing took place in Shangla, a Pashto-speaking area of the Swat Valley region. The attacker was apparently targeting a military vehicle, but most of the victims were ordinary Pakistanis.

It was the deadliest attack in the region since the army claimed to have cleared the valley of militants in an offensive earlier this year. While many insurgents were killed or captured in the army offensive, others are believed to have gone to rural areas or neighboring districts.

TV footage of the bombing showed vegetable stands with their wares spilled on the street, two- story buildings with their fronts torn away and several wrecked cars.

Muhammad Alam was teaching in a nearby school when the attack took place.

“We ran out. The whole market was on fire,” he said. “Bodies were lying everywhere.”

The attack killed 41 people, including six security officers, and wounded 45 others, provincial Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

The Taliban have stepped up attacks in the past week as the military has been preparing to launch a major offensive against the militants in their stronghold, the border region of South Waziristan.

On Oct. 5, a bomber blew himself up inside a heavily guarded U.N. aid agency in the capital, Islamabad, killing five staffers. On Friday, a suspected militant detonated an explosives-laden car in the middle of a busy market in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing 53 people.