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/ 10 December 2004
A bomb apparently targeting a military truck killed nine people, including a soldier, and injured at least 21 when it ripped through a market in the Pakistani city of Quetta on Friday, officials said. The device, believed to have been attached to a bicycle, exploded near the vehicle in the main Mizaan Chowk commercial district of the city.
The chief of police in Gujrat, the Pakistani city where two South Africans have been arrested along with a senior al-Qaeda terrorist, said on Wednesday maps of South African cities were found among items seized after the raid.
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Two South Africans in Pakistani custody have told interrogators they had planned to attack tourist sites in Johannesburg, a security official alleged on Tuesday. ”They had hatched a plot to carry out terrorist attacks on Johannesburg’s main tourist sites,” said the official, who is familiar with the interrogation.
The Pakistani prime minister-designate has survived an attempt on his life by a suicide bomber who came close enough to his car to kill the politician’s driver and at least four other people, and spraying shrapnel into a crowd of his supporters. About three dozen people were wounded, some seriously, in the blast on Friday.
Pakistan has turned to old ally Libya to purchase a fleet of Mirage fighter jets and spare parts, an air force spokesperson said on Monday. ”Libya had a fleet of Mirages, which was grounded for over a decade. We have purchased that fleet at a very reasonable price,” Air Commodore Sarfraz Khan said.
Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, the head of Pakistan’s ruling party and a loyal ally of the nation’s military ruler, was elected caretaker prime minister in a rubber-stamp vote in Parliament on Tuesday. Hussain is expected to stay in office only for a matter of weeks, until respected Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz assumes the premiership.
Two successive car bombs exploded near the residence of the United States consul general in the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi on Wednesday, injuring at least 15 people, police said. The second, more powerful, blast occurred as police and security officials were investigating the first explosion.
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President General Pervez Musharraf on Thursday said Pakistan will use ”political or military means” to eliminate al-Qaeda from its lawless tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. His comments come as authorities are trying to get foreign militants to accept an amnesty if they renounce terrorism and agree to live peacefully.
A powerful bomb exploded at a Shiite Muslim mosque packed with worshippers in the southern port city of Karachi on Friday, killing at least 14 people and wounding scores of others in a suspected suicide attack, police and hospital officials said. Bits of flesh and pools of blood lay all around as rescue workers tended to the wounded.
At least six people were killed and 15 injured on Wednesday when a three-storey building was destroyed by an explosion in the Pakistani garrison city of Rawalpindi, police officials said. Rescue workers were trying to pull out at least two people still trapped under the rubble.
Five policemen and one gunman were killed on Sunday in an armed attack on a police station by up to a dozen people in the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi, officers said. They said the gunmen, riding in two or three cars, went to the police station in an eastern district of Karachi and sprayed bullets at the premises.
Up to 55 militants may have been killed in Pakistan’s biggest assault to date against al-Qaeda-linked targets, Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat said on Thursday. About 7 500 army and paramilitary troops have been pounding the hideouts of an estimated 500 al-Qaeda-linked militants and their local tribal supporters.
Pakistan on Thursday rejected Nigerian claims that its armed forces chief offered this week to help the African state acquire nuclear power. "We are denying it. This is baseless. He said nothing of this kind," said military spokesperson Major General Shaukat Sultan.
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At least 29 people were killed in three-way gunfire triggered by an attack on a procession of Shiite Muslims in the southwest Pakistani city of Quetta on Tuesday, a senior official said. The chaos forced authorities to declare a curfew and call in troops.
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/ 15 February 2004
Rescue and relief efforts were under way in remote areas of northern Pakistan on Sunday after a powerful earthquake killed at least 20 people and damaged hundreds of buildings. The quake, measuring 5,7 on the Richter scale, struck at 10.30am GMT on Saturday and was followed by an aftershock measuring 5,5.
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/ 3 February 2004
Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb, has admitted selling nuclear technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya, government officials said on Monday. However, diplomats and analysts in Islamabad suggested on Monday that Khan may not be charged. In fact, he is a hero to many in Pakistan.
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/ 27 January 2004
Pakistan’s probe into the alleged sale of nuclear secrets to Iran and Libya has narrowed to three scientists and four military officers, as speculation mounted on Tuesday that ”national heroes” could be charged — those elevated to national hero status for their contributions to making Pakistan a nuclear power.
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/ 26 December 2003
A suicide bombing on Thursday killed 14 people in the second attempt on Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf’s life in 11 days, raising troubling questions about Musharraf’s ability to hold on to power and keep a militant Islamic movement at bay. After the attack the leader vowed to ”cleanse the country of these extremists”.
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/ 30 September 2003
The United States has approved the sale of -million-worth of modern military equipment to Pakistan, a senior official said in Islamabad on Tuesday. Pakistan has been seeking equipment to correct the imbalance it says has been created by rival India’s acquisition of high-tech weapons systems from Russia and Israel.
A court in Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore on Saturday sentenced a young Muslim to death for making derogatory statements about the Prophet Mohammed and Islam as a whole, police and court officials said.
A tribal council ordered an 18-year-old girl gang-raped by four men to punish her family after her brother was seen walking with a woman from a higher class tribe.
Tribal elders in a deeply conservative district in Pakistan’s northwestern frontier warned women not to get involved in upcoming elections, threatening on Sunday to burn down the homes of any family that allows its women to vote.