19 die in Pakistan bomb blast

FOUR children on their way to school were among 19 people killed yesterday when a suicide bomber drove a pickup truck laden with explosives into a police station, in Pakistan's troubled north-west.

• The scene of devastation after a suicide bomber struck yesterday at a police station in Lakki Marwat, Pakistan Picture: Getty Images

The attack is the third major bombing in less than a week, raising fears that militants are trying to capitalise on chaos caused by the country's devastating floods.

It came as President Asif Ali Zardari warned Pakistan's very survival was at risk from the twin forces of extremism and flooding.

"On September 6 this year the nation is confronted with an existential threat from fanatics, zealots and extremists on the one hand and from the material devastation caused by the country's worst floods on the other," he said in a statement released to coincide with Defence of Pakistan Day.

"While the former is testing our will to survive and live in accordance with our values and ideology, the latter is testing our ability, resourcefulness and resilience to rise like a phoenix from the ashes of a natural disaster."

The country has been battered by floods for the past six weeks. Millions of people still need food, medicine and clean water.

Along with the humanitarian crisis, the government has been criticised for a sluggish response creating a sense of political crisis.

At the same time, more than 60,000 troops have been deployed as part of the relief effort raising fears that militant groups would use the breathing space to regroup and capitalise on the chaos.

Yesterday, a suicide bomber destroyed the police station in Lakki Marwat, in Khyber Pakhtumkhwa. A witness said a truck crashed into a school bus before hitting a wall of the police station and destroying the building.

The attack was later claimed by a spokesman for the Pakistan Taleban, saying they targeted the police for encouraging residents to set up militias to fight the militants - known locally as lashkars. The group pledged to carry out additional attacks unless the militias disbanded.

"After the police, we will attack those active in forming anti-Taleban lashkars if they have not given up their activities," said Taleban spokesman Ihsanullah Ihsan.

Yusuf Raza Gilani, Pakistan's prime minister, condemned the attack. "It goes to show the terrorists have no creed except bloodshed and chaos," he said.

Until last week, there had been an apparent lull in militant activity. That ended on Wednesday when three suicide bombers killed 31 people and wounded hundreds more during a Shi'ite procession in Lahore.

On Friday, a suicide bomber killed 59 people at a Shi'ite Muslim rally in Quetta, capital of the southwest province of Balochistan. Targeting religious minorities has been a favoured tactic of Sunni extremists intent on sowing fear.

The Friday attack was followed by a statement that the Pakistan Taleban was planning attacks in the US and Europe, after American prosecutors charged their leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, over a plot that killed seven CIA employees at a base in Afghanistan last December.

Talat Masood, a retired army general, said: "They are trying to take advantage of the precarious situation. The government and the military are both pre-occupied by the floods."

He added that the government should use the attacks to its advantage, driving home a message that the Pakistan Taleban was only interested in heaping more misery on the beleaguered population.

The army has launched a series of offensives over the last year which it says have weakened the Taleban, although analysts question their effectiveness because militants tend to melt away during crackdowns and establish strongholds elsewhere.

"There need to be consistent and far more targeted military operations.

"And in particular, there needs to be a focus on the militants' command and control," said Samina Ahmed, South Asia project director for the International Crisis Group.