NYT : Attacks on Pakistani Military Kill 15

Attacks on Pakistani Military Kill 15

By CARLOTTA GALL | November 25, 2007

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Nov. 24 — Two suicide car bombers attacked military targets on Saturday morning in Rawalpindi, the site of the military’s headquarters, killing at least 15 service members, a military spokesman said. The bombings raised tensions in the country, which is already beset with political and security problems.

The bombings were the latest in a series of attacks on the army and intelligence services, which have been linked to militants fighting an insurgency in northwestern Pakistan. Militants fighting in the Swat valley, a tourist spot just several hours’ drive from the capital, are under pressure from a large-scale military operation mounted last week to push them out of towns and villages in the region.

The military said Friday that it had pushed the militants out of a strategic town of Alpuri, which they occupied several weeks ago.

The country entered its fourth week of political turmoil under de facto martial law, imposed by the president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who said it would help him fight terrorism. His opponents accuse him of using his extraordinary powers primarily to secure another presidential term by dismissing the Supreme Court and appointing a new one packed with his supporters.

The police have been deployed in large numbers to detain members of the judiciary, the lawyers’ movement and opposition political parties.

The Election Commission on Saturday confirmed General Musharraf as the winner of the Oct. 6 presidential election, after a ruling by the new Supreme Court rejected challenges to his eligibility to have run for another five-year term as president while holding the top army post. The court said General Musharraf should resign as army chief before taking the presidential oath. The attorney general, Malik Abdul Qayyum, told local news media that the president might take the oath on Wednesday.

A number of opposition parties met Saturday and said they would boycott the parliamentary elections, set for Jan. 8, unless their demands for the lifting of de facto martial law were met within four days. Among them is the party of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who has announced that he will return from exile in Saudi Arabia to his hometown, Lahore, on Sunday. But political parties were also scrambling to meet the Monday deadline for candidates to submit their election papers.

One of Saturday’s bombings in Rawalpindi occurred when a small car rammed a bus full of intelligence personnel just as it was entering the gate of Hamza Camp, a walled compound where the Inter-Services Intelligence agency and Military Intelligence maintain offices and residential buildings.

Fifteen people on the bus died, said Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad, the chief military spokesman.

Minutes earlier, another suicide car bomber was turned away from a checkpoint near a side entrance to the army General Headquarters several miles away in another part of Rawalpindi, the garrison town just south of the capital. As he turned the car, he detonated the bomb, killing himself and wounding three soldiers at the checkpoint.

The bombings follow a pattern of recent suicide attacks that military officials say is a sign militants are hitting back at the forces that are pursuing them the hardest in what is a growing struggle. A bomber blew himself up in September in the mess hall of Pakistan’s United States-trained special forces unit, the Special Services Group, killing at least 15.

Also in September, two bombers attacked targets near the military headquarters in Rawalpindi, killing 25. One of the bombers had boarded a bus taking personnel from the Inter-Services Intelligence agency to work, killing 18. On Nov. 1, a bomber on a motorbike rammed an air force bus in the town of Sargodha, killing himself and eight others.