Suicide bombing brings threat of starvation to Pakistan borderlands

Some 300,000 desperately poor villagers impoverished by fighting in Pakistan's tribal belt have been left unsure of how they can feed themselves after a female suicide bomber killed 45 people outside a World Food Programme (WFP) food distribution centre, triggering a district-wide suspension of the relief project.

• US-led forces in Afghanistan have been carrying out 'hammer and anvil' operations with Pakistan's army Picture: Rafiq Maqbool/AP

Pakistan said the attack is a sign of insurgent desperation, but the bombing and ongoing battles challenge Islamabad's claims of victory over al-Qaeda and the Taleban in this part of the porous north-west border.

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WFP district co-ordinator Shahab Khan said yesterday that all four food relief centres run by the United Nations agency in the Bajur district had been shut indefinitely since Saturday's bombing in the area's main town of Khar.

The WFP project in Bajur feeds 41,000 families - 300,000 people - who returned to the district from camps for the displaced elsewhere in the country, even though their livelihoods have been ruined by fighting between Pakistan troops and insurgents.

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Painda Khan, a 48-year-old farmer who abandoned his crops months ago, said his family of 11 was now desperate for their rations of rice, flour, lentils, cooking oil and high-energy biscuits that he had been going to pick up today.

"We have been borrowing food from neighbours for the last five days," he said, adding that his family last received supplies on 25 November.

While food relief centres outside Bajur are still functional, WFP official Amjad Jamal said the displaced villagers were not eligible for food rations from outside the district.

"We are trying to resume supplies at the earliest possible opportunity," said Mr Jamal, adding that it was too early to suggest a date.

"We are most concerned for the children in these areas because the majority are already malnourished."

Bajur and other parts of the tribal regions are of major concern to the US because they have been safe havens for militants fighting Nato troops across the border in Afghanistan.

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The US has long pressured Pakistan to clear the area of insurgents.

The top US and Nato commander in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, said Pakistan's "impressive" counterinsurgency efforts against armed groups must be recognised.Gen Petraeus, who took over command of coalition troops in Afghanistan in July, said there had already been co-ordinated operations on both sides of the border, with Pakistani forces on one side and Nato and Afghan troops on the other.

"We want to do more hammer and anvil operations," Gen Petraeus said.

However, prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani yesterday maintained that Pakistan's military had routed al-Qaeda and Taleban from their strongholds in the area despite the bombing and running gun battles in recent days.

Co-ordinated attacks by 150 Islamic militants on five security posts in the Mohmand tribal region on Bajur's southern boundary sparked two days of fighting that officials say claimed the lives of 11 soldiers and 64 insurgents.

Mr Gilani said the Bajur bombing demonstrated the militants' weakened state. Khar administrator Sohail Khan said yesterday that authorities have yet to identify the bomber.

The suicide attack, claimed by the Pakistani Taleban, may be the first by a woman in Pakistan.

A previous report of a female suicide bomber was disproved when a victim was mistaken for the perpetrator and in another case the bomber proved to be a man concealing himself in an all-enveloping burqa.

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Brigadier Mahmood Shah, a defence analyst and former federal official responsible for security in the tribal region, said the recruitment of women as suicide bombers could be a dangerous development because of the cultural reluctance on the part of male security officers to search females.

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