ISLAMABAD, 10 November 2006 — Pakistani authorities hunted yesterday for those behind the worst ever militant attack on Pakistani troops amid fears pro-Taleban tribesmen were ramping up their war against US ally President Pervez Musharraf.
Though no one has claimed Wednesday’s suicide bombing attack on Pakistan Army’s JCOs the army’s top spokesman Maj. Gen, Shaukat Sultan said in Rawalpindi yesterday, “There are indications that the attack was masterminded by Al-Qaeda.”
Rahimullah Yousafzai a journalist from Peshawar working for BBC and The News said, “This could have been the work of Taleban because Taleban are reacting to the Khar missile attack.” The journalist said the attack that killed 42 army recruits in the northwestern town of Dargai on Wednesday was revenge for an airstrike last week on a religious school in the nearby Bajaur region, in which authorities said 80 militants were killed.
An attack on Pakistan Army in such a daredevil fashion has never happened in Pakistan’s history. There were attacks by ‘Mukti Bahini” people during the insurgency in former East Pakistan, but never on such a daring scale.
Meanwhile the government has beefed up security measures around all the military cantonments in Pakistan. One of the immediate step the Joint Headquarters Staff Committee has taken is to man outer cordons of all the establishments of armed forces by the MODC (Ministry of Defense Constabulary). Intelligence units too have been mobilized to scan people’s movement around military cantonments.
The suicide attack was the first on the security forces outside Waziristan, a tribal region where the army has been fighting Al-Qaeda and pro-Taleban militants since late 2003.
Bajaur is at the northern end of Pakistan’s semi-autonomous tribal belt along the Afghan border, while Waziristan is at the south. Osama Bin Laden is believed to be hiding somewhere in the remote, rugged stretch of mountains.
A former chief of security for the region said the military was facing serious consequences for opening up a new front against the militants in Bajaur. “We have been saying since the Bajaur incident that it would have repercussions. It will have far more repercussions than what the government has seen in Waziristan,” retired Brig. Mahmood Shah told Reuters.
Last March, an airstrike on a militant camp in North Waziristan killed about 45 and sparked clashes that went on until the government signed a controversial peace pact in September. Shah said he believed the security forces’ attack in Bajaur would provoke more violence.
“This opening of the front is extremely dangerously and it will spread,” he said, referring to militant attacks. Wednesday’s attack on the unarmed recruits on their training ground in a quiet provincial town seems to have shocked a country long used to blood-letting.
“It seems to indicate that this all may be the beginning of considerable violence and bloodshed since the aim of the extremists now appears to be to directly target the Pakistan army,” the News newspaper said in an editorial.
Many Pakistanis believe last week’s attack on the religious school was carried out by US forces, who are battling a resurgent Taleban and a wave of suicide attacks in neighboring Afghanistan. The United States and Pakistan denied that. Former general and security analyst Talat Masood said the militants saw the Pakistani army as an extension of US policy. “The militants have intensified their insurgency and they are now hitting at the institutions of Pakistan,” he said.
Security across the country had been stepped up and intelligence officials said a sketch of the suicide bomber was being prepared. Sniffer dogs were hunting for an accomplice of the bomber, who fled into fields after the blast.
Musharraf, who survived two Al-Qaeda-inspired assassination attempts in 2003, has vowed to stamp out terrorism but is facing resentment over what many Pakistanis see as his willingness to fight America’s war.
Many analysts believe negotiations with the fiercely independent tribesmen as inevitable. “Prudence demands they should pursue both the political and military option. If they only pursue the military policy ... the violence will escalate and there will be a tit for tat,” Masood said. “They should negotiate, use force whenever necessary but it should be an absolute minimum,” said Shah.
— With input from Agencies
