Suicide bombers kill 62 and injure 111 in Pakistani attack

A PAIR of suicide bombers struck outside a government office yesterday in a tribal region where the Pakistani army has fought the Taleban, killing 62 people and wounding 111 in one of the deadliest attacks in Pakistan this year.

The attack, possibly aimed at some anti-Taleban tribal elders, showed Islamist militants remain a potent force in the northwest tribal belt bordering Afghanistan, despite army offensives and US missile strikes intended to wipe them out.

Washington is watching closely how Pakistan handles its militant crisis, pushing the country to wage war on Taleban and al-Qaeda fighters who use its territory to plan attacks in Afghanistan.

The bombers detonated their explosives near the Yakaghund village office of Rasool Khan, a deputy administrator of the Mohmand tribal region, who escaped unharmed.

A group of tribal elders, including some involved in setting up militias to fight the Taliban, were in the building at the time. None was hurt, according to Mohmand chief administrator Amjad Ali Khan.

Some 70 to 80 shops were damaged or destroyed, while damage to a prison allowed 28 prisoners - ordinary criminals, not militants - to flee, Rasool Khan said. One bomb appeared fairly small but the other was huge, and they went off within seconds of each other, officials said. At least one bomber was on a motorcycle.

Women and children were among the victims.

Near the attack site, officials had been distributing wheelchairs to disabled people and equipment to poor farmers, Amjad Ali Khan said. It was unclear how many participants in that event were among the victims.

The attack was the deadliest in Pakistan since a team of gunmen and suicide bombs stormed two mosques of the Ahmadi sect in the eastern city of Lahore in late May, killing 97 people. That was one of a series of deadly strikes in Punjab this year

Security official Esa Khan said: "After the blast, I saw destruction. I saw bodies everywhere. I saw the injured crying for help."

No group immediately claimed responsibility for Friday's attack, but Mohmand is one of several areas in Pakistan's lawless tribal belt where Taliban and al-Qaeda members are believed to be hiding.

The Pakistani army has carried out operations in Mohmand, but it has been unable to root out the militants.

Its efforts to rely on citizen militias to take on the militants have had limited success there.

Also yesterday, US Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate's armed services committee, and Senator Jack Reed, a committee member, met Pakistani officials in Islamabad to discuss their countries' co- operation in the fight against extremists.

In a statement after he met the US lawmakers, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said both countries should try harder to increase mutual trust.

He said Pakistan was doing its utmost to combat militancy, and "expected friendly countries like the US to share with it credible and actionable information rather than indulging in blame game, in order to achieve our shared and common goal of succeeding against militancy."z