... headquarters of al-Qaeda in Pakistain and likely location of Ayman al-Zawahiri. The Haqqani network has established a
ministatein centered on the town with courts, tax offices and lots of madrassas...
: The outlawed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain has claimed the credit for the suicide kaboom
in Fateh Jang and attacks on border posts in Bajaur.TTP front man Shahidullah Shahid told Dawn by phone from an unspecified location that the bombing and the attacks were in retaliation for the killing of its men in Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
and attacks on Taliban in other places.
"We will respond to repression in the manner as we did today."
He claimed that the TTP was still interested in peace talks, but the government was never serious and continued to target and torture Taliban fighters.
| An Nahar reports the Fateh Jang attack as follows: |
The attack happened on a main road just outside the town of Fateh Jang 40 kilometers (24 miles) west of Islamabad, local police official Ghulam Majeed told AFP.
Details of how the bomber reached the vehicle are not yet clear.
"Two officers, namely Lieutenant Colonels Zahir Shah and Arshad, and three civilians embraced shahadat (martyrdom) when a security forces vehicle was targeted by a jacket wallah," a security official told AFP.
The bomber was also killed.
More than 4,000 Pak police, paramilitaries or troops have bit the dust to an Islamist insurgency since 2002, but the death of high-ranking officers is rare.