 Tribal militants are suspected of planting a bomb last Sunday that killed 13 people on a bus, in retaliation for an ongoing military operation against them in Balochistan. The security situation in Balochistan has been deteriorating for the past year, and worsened further after a rocket attack in December during a visit by President Pervez Musharraf to Kohlu town on December 14.
| That wasn't really bright, was it? |
Baloch nationalists say hundreds of people have been killed during a subsequent crackdown said to have involved helicopter gunships, though analysts say this could be an exaggeration. Balochistan IG Chaudhary Mohammad Yaqoob told Reuters in Quetta that militant camps had been destroyed, but more were being established across the border in Iran, although it is on the opposite side of the province from where the tribes suspected of causing most trouble operate.
| If the Iranian government's supporting them that's in the same category of bright as rocketing Perv... |
“We have destroyed over a dozen of their camps inside Pakistan, but we have information that they have set up two new camps in the hills on Iranian territory,” he said. “We will soon inform the Iranian government.”
| Their reaction should be instructive, one way or the other... |
SundayÂ’s bus bomb, if it was carried out by tribals, would mark a change in tactics, as previously militants have targeted military bases, train lines and gas pipelines as part of their long-running, low-level insurgency.
| That's true. My guess as to who did the bus bombing involved Lashkar-e-Jhangvi or the Wazir Taliban... |
Yaqoob said 25 suspects had been detained in an investigation focused on supporters of Nawab Akbar Bugti, a tribal chieftain who wants the government to pay more for exploiting gas fields in his area. “We are interrogating them, and we have evidence that they have carried out the attack,” Yaqoob said on Wednesday. Photographs of Bugti outside a cave hideout were published in Pakistani newspapers last month. Yaqoob said Bugti’s group has forged links with the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), whose fighters are drawn from the Marri tribe based around Kohlu. Bugti has in the past denied any links with the BLA. “The (bus) attack was a fallout from the ongoing operation in Dera Bugti. They are desperate and they are targeting people belonging to Punjab,” said Yaqoob. The bus, bound for Lahore had travelled 60 km from Quetta when the bomb exploded. Eight more people were killed last weekend in rocket attacks around Dera Bugti and Sui, 290 km southeast of Quetta. |