Suicide attack in Islamabad

From the Pak Tribune:

At least thirteen person were killed and fifty others injured when a suicide bomber blew himself up as hundreds of supporter of Chief Justice gathered for a rally in the premises of Islamabad court on Tuesday night.

According to details, a motorcyclist entered the premises of the Islamabad Court and blew himself up with big bang when he reached near reception of PPP [Pakistan People's Party] pavilion.

From the Daily Times:

The powerful blast went off at about 8:27pm outside the main entrance of the corridor leading to the venue of the event in F-8 Markaz, shortly before Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry was to pass through the site to give a speech to lawyers of the Islamabad District Bar Association.

The site was littered with body parts and blood, and at least 13 people died at the scene. Ambulances rushed the injured to Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) and Federal Government Services Hospital, the two major government hospitals of the city. Nine of the injured are in critical condition.

The site was 40 metres away from the main stage where hundreds of supporters of the Pakistan People’s Party and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz had set up camps to welcome the chief justice. The blast occurred within the PPP camp and many of the dead, including three women, were activists of the party.

F-8 Markaz, Islamabad click to enlarge

(See more photos at All Things Pakistan and Metroblogging Islamabad.)

There have been several suicide bombings in Pakistan since the violence at the Red Mosque.

Officials said that three blasts struck a military convoy in Swat, a mountainous area of North West Province, killing 11 troops and seven civilians and wounding 47. Reports said two vehicles laden with explosives had rammed the convoy.

In the day's second attack, a suicide bomber targeted scores of people taking exams for recruitment to the police force in the city of Dera Ismail Khan. The blast killed 20 people and wounded 35, said police officer Mohammed Aslam.

The attacks followed the death of 24 paramilitary soldiers, who were killed in a suicide car bomb attack in North Waziristan on Saturday.

Another suicide attack today on a checkpoint in North Waziristan killed one soldier.

It is not clear why this gathering was targeted. Chief Justice Chaudhry was suspended by Musharraf in March for alleged misconduct. Since then, there have been many demonstrations in support of Chaudhry, and he has become a focus of anti-government sentiment. (In May, riots in Karachi were especially violent.) It doesn't make much sense to attack Musharraf's government by sending a suicide bomber into a crowd where Chaudhry was going to give a speech.

Dawn had this on Monday.

The federal government on Monday withdrew the charge of judicial misconduct against Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry. The once voluminous reference with annexure is now reduced to just allegations that the CJ abused his office for securing a government job for his son and privileges/protocol for him.

Now, party politics in Pakistan is a complicated affair. The PPP, led by Benazir Bhutto, recently declined to join the All-Parties Democratic Movement (APDM) at a conference in London. Perhaps someone was trying to send a message about not going far enough to oppose Musharraf. Plus, the PPP was supportive of the crackdown on the Red Mosque. Maybe the radicals are getting their revenge.

Although, Dawn had this today:

Meanwhile, in a TV interview soon after the blast, the PPP chairperson said that her party was the main target of the suicide attack, but not because of its stand on the Lal Masjid issue.

Ms Bhutto said a civil war was going on in the country and the crisis could not be resolved through imposition of emergency. She said that the moderate and democratic forces would further be alienated if emergency was imposed in the country. She stressed the need for a strong democratic government in the country for the fight against extremism. She said that the extremists wanted to break the country.

There may be something to this. In a recent video, al-Zawahiri called for an uprising in Pakistan. He said (view video here):

Muslims of Pakistan: your salvation is only through Jihad. Rigged elections will not save you, politics will not save you, and bargaining, bootlicking, negotiations with the criminals and political maneuvers will not save you.

Your salvation is only through Jihad, so you must now back the Mujahideen in Afghanistan with your persons, wealth, opinion and expertise, because the Jihad in Afghanistan is the door to salvation for Afghanistan, Pakistan and the rest of the region. Die honorably in the fields of Jihad, and don't live like women with moustaches and beards. Aren't there any honorable ones in Pakistan? Aren't there any jealous ones? Isn't there anyone who prefers the hereafter to the life of this world?

Perhaps Al Qaeda is running a suicide bombing campaign to take the pressure off them in the tribal areas, and to keep Musharraf's focus on handling the unrest, and the political fallout.

There have now been about 16 suicide attacks in Pakistan so far this year. According to the SATP chronology, there were about 22 suicide attacks in the previous 5 years combined.

Over the weekend, the Taliban in North Waziristan said they were pulling out of a peace accord with the government. Not that the Taliban felt at all constrained by the accord in the first place, but it is a step back towards open defiance. They may regret it though, as it might give the Pakistani government more of a free hand to enter the area in force. Bill Roggio adds:

In canceling the Waziristan Accord, the Taliban have threatened the tribes and their members if they worked or negotiated with the government. "The Taliban warned Khasadar and levies personnel not to perform official duties with army and paramilitary troops, otherwise they would also be attacked," the Daily Times reported. "The Taliban also announced amnesty for pro-government tribal elders, but warned that they should not conduct any jirgas with the government."
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The military has yet to deploy in the red zones of Bajaur and North and South Waziristan, where the Taliban is strongest. The military appears to be working to contain the threat at the moment.

The very name "Pakistan" speaks to its very nature of a patchwork of ethnic groups, tribes, and interests. It is essentially an acronym for the major regions of Pakistan, namely P for the Punjabis, A for the Afghans (NWFP), K for the Kashmiris, S for Sind, and the "tan," they say, for Baluchistan.

Add to that the scourge of radical Islam, and you can begin to see why Pakistan is a troubled place these days.

It was clear ages ago that allowing the Taliban and Al Qaeda to create a rearguard area in the NWFP for rest and refit was a mistake. And so admissions like this in the NYTimes seem a little late.

President Bush’s top counterterrorism advisers acknowledged Tuesday that the strategy for fighting Osama bin Laden’s leadership of Al Qaeda in Pakistan had failed, as the White House released a grim new intelligence assessment that has forced the administration to consider more aggressive measures inside Pakistan.
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The report nevertheless left the White House fending off accusations that it had been distracted by the war in Iraq and that the deals it had made with President Musharraf had resulted in lost time and lost ground.