PAKISTAN: Suicide bomber kills thirty nine

Record ID: 357003

  • Title: PAKISTAN: Suicide bomber kills thirty nine
  • Date: 3rd March 2008
  • Summary: (W4) PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN (MARCH 02, 2008) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF LADY READING HOSPITAL VEHICLE DRIVING INTO HOSPITAL INJURED MAN BEING TAKEN OUT OF VEHICLE PEOPLE THRONGING HOSPITAL ENTRANCE DEAD BODY BEING CARRIED AWAY ON A COT TWO MEN HUGGING EACH OTHER AND WEEPING (SOUNDBITE) (Urdu) UN-NAMED INJURED MAN SAYING: "I have seen more than 50 bodies with my own eyes. Most of
  • Embargoed: 18th March 2008 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Pakistan
  • Country: Pakistan
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA6TR77J6OX38ZWFKNGHF818XRD
  • Story Text: A witness injured in a suicide attack that killed 39 in Pakistan says most of those killed were tribal elders.
    At least 39 people were killed and scores more injured when a suicide bomber attacked a traditional tribal meeting in northwestern Pakistan on Sunday (MARCH 02), officials said.
    The injured were rushed to hospitals in Kohat and Peshawar, where many succumbed to their injuries.

    "I have seen more than 50 bodies with my own eyes. Most of them were tribal "maliks" (elders) and former parliamentarians. There were numerous injured; maybe more than a 100," a young man with an injured leg told Reuters Television.
    Pakistan is in the middle of a wave of violence blamed on al Qaeda-linked militants based in tribal lands on the Afghan border and there have been three suicide attacks in as many days. Over 500 people have been killed in militant related violence this year alone.
    A top government official in Darra Adam Kheil tribal region told Reuters the bomber detonated a device while tribal elders were holding an outdoor "jirga", or traditional meeting to finalise the formation of a committee of locals to take steps against miscreants and help the government .
    Local television showed pictures of residents and authorities cleaning up the blast site, a shady clearing surrounded by tall trees with a backdrop of rugged mountains.
    Piles of torn clothing and bloody Muslim prayer caps were mixed up with the shattered remains of "charpoys", wood and rope daybeds.
    Naimat Khan, a witness, said he saw three people, who were not locals, walk into the place, and the youngest of the three blew himself up right in the middle of the elders.
    A suicide attack on a police funeral in northwest Pakistan killed at least 38 people on Friday (February 29), while on Monday (February 25) the army's top medical officer was killed in a bomb attack in Rawalpindi.
    The escalating violence has raised concern about the stability of the nuclear armed state as it passes through a period of political transition, with doubts over how long President Pervez Musharraf can hold onto power after his allies lost a parliamentary election on Feb. 18.
    Militants intensified their suicide bomb campaign after the army stormed Islamabad's Red Mosque last July to crush a militant student movement.
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