ISLAMABAD
— At least 30 people were killed Monday in a bombing near Pakistan’s military
headquarters in Rawalpindi, with army and Defense Ministry personnel thought to
be among the victims.
The blast
at a small shopping center seemed aimed at a line of people waiting to withdraw
their salaries from a bank branch on the ground floor, with soldiers likely to
be in the line. Police officials said that a suicide bomber had walked up the
queue and detonated himself.
Bodies of
the dead and wounded were lying across the parking lot and the road in front of
the shopping center, women and children among them, witnesses said. Pools of
blood and the twisted metal remains of vehicles were visible after the bodies
were removed. Some 35 people were wounded.
The
explosion was a few hundred yards from the military headquarters complex, and
the bank may have been the nearest for army personnel to use. The Ministry of
Defense is also nearby. Given that it was the first workday of the month, many
people would have just had their wages and pensions paid into their accounts.
The capital, Islamabad, is a 25-minute drive away.
A
ferocious wave of terrorist attacks has hit Pakistan, retaliation for the
launch last month of a military offensive in the South Waziristan region in the
tribal area along the Afghan border, the base of the country’s Taliban
movement, which is behind most of the bloodshed.
Foreign
Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi said in a statement that “such
barbaric, inhuman and un-Islamic terrorist acts only strengthen our resolve to
fight terrorism with more vitality.”
A bombing
at a market in Peshawar last week killed more than 115 people, and more than
300 have died in terrorist attacks since the beginning of October.
Last
month, a team of assailants shot its way into the military headquarters at
Rawalpindi, killing six people and taking hostages before commanders retook the
building.
Pakistan
on Monday announced rewards of $5 million for information that leads to the
killing or capture of Taliban leaders, including Pakistani Taliban chief
Hakimullah Mehsud, who now has a bounty of some $600,000 on his head.
Also on
Monday, the United Nations reported that it was suspending development work in
the terrorism-plagued North West Frontier Province and the tribal area. The U.N.,
which has lost 11 employees to terrorist violence in recent months, will reduce
the number of international staff in the country and undertake only emergency
work in the northwest.
Via McClatchy-Tribune News Service.
