PESHAWAR, 29 January 2007 — Pakistan ordered a federal probe and beefed up security yesterday after a suspected suicide bomber killed 14 people including two top police officers, in the second such attack in two days. Governor of the North West Frontier Province Lt. Gen. Ali Jan Aurakzai blamed Taleban or Al-Qaeda for both the bombings.
Speaking to newsmen during the funeral, Aurakzai said, “The attacker targeted the Peshawar police and not a religious procession.”
Aurakzai visited the injured victims of the blast in hospital and resolved to find the culprits. “We resolve to unveil those who are challenging the writ of the government and who are the enemies of people,” Aurakzai said.
As investigators hunted for clues about the bombing in Peshawar, the main city in northwest Pakistan, thousands of mourners attended the funeral prayers of its slain police chief and deputy superintendent.
President Pervez Musharraf and Premier Shaukat Aziz condemned the bombing and ordered an immediate investigation, the Associated Press of Pakistan reported.
Akram Durrani, the chief minister of NWFP, said a joint investigation team comprising provincial and federal officials had been formed.
Meanwhile, thousands of armed policemen stood on alert in Peshawar and extra paramilitary troops were deployed around mosques to prevent further attacks, a security official told AFP.
The blast late Saturday targeted police who were guarding a Shiite procession, Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao told AFP.
Around 30 people were injured in the explosion near the mosque in the Qisakhawani bazaar.
On Friday, a suicide bomber blew himself up at the upmarket Marriott hotel in the capital Islamabad, also killing security guard trying to prevent him from entering the building.
Investigators probing the hotel blast said Saturday they were looking at possible links to pro-Taleban extremists fighting government forces near the Afghan border. There was no immediate comment on suspects for the Peshawar attack, which killed people in the city, including six police officers.
The two senior officers killed were identified as Peshawar’s police chief Malik Saad and Deputy Superintendent Raziq Khan, police said.
A senior security official said the bombing was most likely a suicide attack, adding that the severed legs of the suspected bomber were recovered from the site.
“There is no crater in the ground and it is possible that it was a suicide attack, but we cannot say that with authority at the moment,” Sherpao said. The investigators would look into whether the blast had any link to the ongoing military operation against pro-Taleban militants in tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, he said.
The devastating blast left blood and limbs littered over the narrow street as emergency workers picked up the mutilated bodies.
“I was standing outside my house when the blast occurred and I was hit by shrapnel,” a shocked witness, Mohammad Rahim, said at the city’s Lady Reading hospital.
