Terror attack at spy agency HQ kills 10
Saturday November 14 2009
A bomb killed at least 10 people and destroyed the regional headquarters of Pakistan's spy agency yesterday, with jihadists striking the institution that once nurtured them.
The office of the Inter- Services Intelligence agency (ISI) in Peshawar, capital of the North-West Frontier Province, was struck by a car bomb, causing the building to collapse.
Separately, six people were killed after a bombing at a police station in Bannu on the edge of the tribal borderland with Afghanistan. The latest violence came as James Jones, the US national security adviser, visited Pakistan for talks.
The country has been hit by terrorist attacks in retaliation for the military offensive that began last month in South Waziristan, the heartland of the Pakistani Taliban movement. The attack on the ISI follows a gun attack by extremists on a military site last month.
The army, operating through the spy agency, has worked with jihadist groups since the 1980s, using them as proxy warriors in Afghanistan and India. However, the relationship between the military and the mullahs broke down after Pakistan sided with the US against the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001.
Some extremist groups turned on the state, especially after the storming of the Red Mosque in Islamabad in 2007. Other jihadist groups seem to be within the military's control.
Hasan Askari Rizvi, a security analyst, said: "From their (the extremists') perspective, the ISI and the Pakistani government have betrayed them and they have betrayed the Islamic cause." (© Daily Telegraph, London)
- Saeed Shah in Islamabad and Emal Khan in Peshawar
Irish Independent
