Islamabad, Pakistan – More than 50 people were killed in suicide attacks across Pakistan on Thursday as the violence engulfing this country gave no sign of abating.
Three assaults in less than 15 hours hit the north, the south and an area close to Pakistan’s volatile border region with Afghanistan. The fatalities pushed past 150 the number of people who have died violently in the past week, since Islamic militants vowed to punish Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in revenge for a blood-soaked government raid on a radical mosque.
The deadliest of Thursday’s bombings struck a well-protected convoy carrying Chinese engineers through the town of Hub, in lawless Baluchistan province in the south, authorities said. The attacker’s vehicle blew up alongside the convoy in a ball of fire so powerful it destroyed four police cars and ripped off the facades of nearby shops.
At least 30 people died in the blast.
A local councilor, Abdul Jamil Gichki, told reporters that eight police officers were among the dead. However, the car in which the engineers were riding escaped major damage.
Musharraf appealed to his compatriots to rally around the fight against extremism.
“We have to take the country forward, and with extremist activities all economic achievements made over the years will go to waste,” Musharraf warned.
On Thursday morning, a suicide bomber rammed a car laden with explosives at the gate of a parade ground belonging to a police academy in the northern city of Hangu. Six police officers and one civilian were killed.
Later Thursday, an attacker detonated himself during evening prayers at a mosque in the northwest garrison town of Kohat, about 40 miles south of Peshawar. Authorities said the blast killed 14 people – 12 army recruits and two children – and injured 15 others.
As for the attack on the convoy in Hub, it remained unclear whether religious radicalism was the motive.
Baluchistan, a region rich in natural resources, is home to a militant secessionist movement fought by local fighters who resent being ruled by the ethnically different Punjabis who dominate the government in Islamabad.
Suicide attacks have become daily occurrences since last week’s siege of the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, in Islamabad, in which more than 100 people died. The raid led to calls by militants for retaliation and to the renunciation of a 10-month-old cease-fire agreement with the government by tribal leaders in the restive North Waziristan region, a stronghold of Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters near the border with Afghanistan.
Although the peace pact was heavily criticized as too lenient toward the militants, Islamabad is seeking to revive it.
On Thursday, a delegation of tribal leaders left Peshawar for North Waziristan’s main town to negotiate a return to the cease-fire.
