Covered from head to foot
in padded protective gear, but with his extremities still dangerously exposed,
this Afghan bomb disposal expert took his life in his hands to defuse this
suicide bomber's explosive vest. Security forces captured the would-be martyr
before he blew himself up in Jalalabad earlier today, hog-tying the man to stop
him detonating the device. But before the suspected terrorist could be taken in
for interrogation, the bomb squad had to be called in for the risky job of
disarming the bomb strapped across his chest. One hundred miles down the Khyber
Pass, in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, 17 people were not so lucky.
A car bomb exploded there
as a convoy of paramilitary troops passed through the outskirts of the city,
killing at least 17 people and wounding dozens of others.
It was one of three blasts
which killed at least 43 people in different parts of Pakistan today, just as
David Cameron visited the country's capital pledging help to fight extremism. The
heavily armoured Afghan National Army man gingerly, in scenes reminiscent of
the blockbuster Hollywood war film The Hurt Locker, approached the suicide
bomber wielding naught but a pair of wire cutters. After carefully disabling
the improvised device, the suspect was loaded, his face bloodied and still
bound by his hands and feet, into a flat bed truck to be taken to a detention
centre for questioning.
As the U.S.-led coalition
which has occupied the country since 2001 negotiates the terms of its
withdrawal, it is a task Afghans will increasingly find themselves carrying
out. The situation over the border in Pakistan is a sign of how bad things can
be.
In the deadliest of today's
attacks, twin blasts near a Shiite Muslim mosque in Quetta, the capital of
south-west Baluchistan province, killed at least 22 people, including two women
and several children. Senior police officer
Ishtiaq Ahmed said 65 others were wounded in the attack. Initial reports indicated a
hand grenade was used in the first blast, forcing people to run in the
direction of the mosque, where a suicide bomber detonated his explosives, said
another police officer, Fayaz Sumbal. Radical Sunni Muslims have stepped up
attacks in the past two years against minority Shiites, whom they consider to
be heretics. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack. Suspicion will
likely fall on the militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which has carried out many
of the attacks against Shiites in Baluchistan in recent years. In Peshawar most
of the dead and wounded were civilians, although nine paramilitary Frontier
Corps troops were hurt, said police official Shafiullah Khan.
The blast struck one
Frontier Corps vehicle, but the other passed by safely.
Scenes broadcast by local
television news networks showed that the explosion damaged many other vehicles
and shops in the area. Frontier Corps vehicles rushed to the scene, and a
police officer collected evidence from the crater caused by the bomb. Elsewhere
in the north-west, a roadside bomb struck an army convoy and killed four
soldiers in the North Waziristan tribal area, the main sanctuary for Taliban
and al Qaida militants in the country, said intelligence officials. The blast
also wounded 20 soldiers, the officials said.
No one has claimed
responsibility for the attacks in the north-west, but suspicion will fall on
the Pakistani Taliban.
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