Blast underscores challenges facing Pakistan
- Posted by hasan on August 20th, 2008.
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Loading ...If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed or E-mail Newsletter. Thanks for visiting! The blast occurred in Dera Ismail Khan, in Pakistan’s troubled northwest. Despite his pro-U.S. stance on fighting Islamic terrorists, Musharraf was unable to prevent militants from using the area as a staging ground for attacks on NATO troops in nearby Afghanistan. The mountainous region has also become a hotbed for sectarian violence. Haji Abdul Rauf, the mayor of Dera Ismail Khan, said the blast occurred after Sunni Muslim extremists assassinated a local Shiite leader and then dispatched a suicide bomber to kill his grieving family members as they gathered in the hospital’s emergency room. Police Chief Nasir Mahmood told the Associated Press that the blast claimed 27 lives, including two police officers, and wounded 35 people.
A suicide attack on a hospital Tuesday in northern Pakistan killed more than two dozen people, a reminder of the challenges facing the country’s untested democratic government after Pervez Musharraf resigned as president.
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