Two soldiers were killed on Friday in the first suicide bombing in Pakistani Kashmir while several people were hurt in a blast near the Afghan border as the army prepares to attack Taliban in that region.
Islamist militants have carried out a series of bomb attacks across Pakistan in recent weeks in retaliation for a military offensive in the northwest but there have been no such attacks in Pakistan’s part of the disputed Kashmir region.
The army launched its offensive after Taliban gains raised fears for United States ally Pakistan’s future and worry about the safety of its nuclear arsenal.
The blast in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistani Kashmir, will raise concern that the militants are expanding their campaign to distract the military as it closes in on Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud in South Waziristan on the Afghan border.
”The bomber blew himself up near a military vehicle. Two of our soldiers embraced martyrdom,” a military spokesperson told Reuters. Three soldiers were wounded in the attack.
Kashmir is at the core of a decades-old dispute between Pakistan and India and the cause of two of their three wars since their independence from British rule in 1947.
Separatist insurgents backed by Pakistan have been fighting Indian security forces in India’s part of the Himalayan region for the past 20 years. But Pakistani Kashmir had been peaceful.
The US has hailed Pakistan’s action against the militants and on Wednesday the US Senate approved tripling aid to Pakistan to about $1,5-billion a year for five years as part of a US plan to fight extremism with economic development.
US President Barack Obama has put Afghanistan and Pakistan at the centre of his foreign policy agenda and has launched a strategy aimed at defeating al-Qaeda and stabilising Afghanistan, where thousands of extra US soldiers are arriving.
Al-Qaeda ally
Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani appealed on Thursday to visiting US National Security Adviser Jim Jones for US help to resolve the dispute with India over Muslim-majority Kashmir.
Gilani’s office cited Jones as saying the US government wanted to help the nuclear-armed neighbours resolve ”core issues”.
Jones is in India on Friday.
India broke off talks with Pakistan after militant attacks on the city of Mumbai in November. India blamed the attacks on Pakistan-based militants and wants Pakistan to act against them.
The US is pushing for an easing of tension between the rivals so Pakistan can focus on fighting the Taliban.
The military has been launching air strikes on Mehsud’s bases this month while soldiers have been securing main roads and sealing off his stronghold
Mehsud is a close al-Qaeda ally and his followers have responded with a campaign of attacks, including suicide blasts, across the country.
Also on Friday, six people, including three soldiers, were wounded when a roadside bomb hit a military convoy in North Waziristan, another militant sanctuary on the Afghan border.
The US has stepped up missile attacks by pilotless drones on militant targets in Pakistan’s northwest since September last year.
On Tuesday, about 70 of Mehsud’s militant followers were killed in drone strike in South Waziristan at a funeral of a militant commander killed in a similar attack earlier in the day.
It was the most deadly drone attack in Pakistan.
Pakistan said it has killed about 1 600 militants in the offensive in the former tourist valley of Swat and is in the final stages of securing the region before turning its full attention to South Waziristan.
Independent casualty figures are not available.
Nearly two million people have been displaced by the fighting, adding to the government’s economic burden and raising the risk of an erosion of public support for the offensive. — Reuters