First off, this could have been much, much worse if one of the Pakistani police hadn't been thinking fast and shot a suicide bomber as quickly as he did but the net result was two police officers were killed along with the suicide bomber in an attack at a police station in the capital city of Islamabad, Pakistan today. The key word in all of that, of course, is Islamabad. This has all the earmarks of another al Qaeda planned attack as one of their all-time favorite targets is a police station - the strategy has always been to not only kill police officers but to dissuade new recruits from joining the security forces. And this attack also reinforces the fear in the general population that al Qaeda and Taliban elements can strike anytime, anywhere in Pakistan. Here's the full article from Breitbart:
Blast kills 2 at police building in Islamabad
ISLAMABAD (AP) - A suicide bomber attacked a police building in Pakistan's capital Saturday, blowing himself up in a courtyard after being shot by officers as he ran toward them, officials said. Two officers died and six were wounded.
The bombing in Islamabad was the latest in a string of attacks in Pakistani cities that officials blame on militants taking revenge for the military's month-old offensive to oust the Taliban from the Swat Valley in the country's northwest.
Waquar Shah, an officer on duty at the police emergency call center when it was attacked, said a man wearing a heavy jacket was spotted as he jumped over a wall at the center into a courtyard.
"He jumped in from the rear wall, then ran toward the offices," Shah said. "One of our guys opened fire on him and he fell and blew up."
Senior police commander Tahir Aalam said two officers were killed and six others were injured.
Earlier Saturday, militants ambushed a military convoy in a district near Swat, killing two detained aides of a senior cleric with close ties to the Taliban, the army said.
It was not clear if the attack was an attempt to rescue the prisoners or assassinate them before they could provide intelligence to the military—or even if the attackers knew that Taliban-linked prisoners were in the convoy.
A roadside bomb and gunfire hit the convoy before dawn as it traveled from Sakhakot town near Swat to the main northwestern city of Peshawar, the army said. One soldier also died in the attack and five were wounded.
The army identified the prisoners as Muhammad Maulana Alam and Ameer Izzat Khan, top aides to hard-line cleric Sufi Muhammad, who is the father-in-law of Maulana Fazlullah, the Taliban chief in Swat.
Sufi Muhammad negotiated a peace deal with the government that was widely seen as allowing the Taliban to take control of the valley.
The deal collapsed earlier this year when the Taliban advanced into neighboring districts, triggering a military offensive that prompted a spree of retaliatory attacks by militants in the northwest and beyond.
"These two were being transported so that intelligence agencies could investigate them," military spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas told reporters.
No motive was known, but "I wouldn't rule out that they were targeted or killed on purpose," Abbas said.
Rasul Bahksh Rais, a political scientist at Lahore University, said the killings may have been deliberate to prevent Alam and Khan from giving the military information that could help find Taliban leaders.
"I think it was a targeted killing by the militants because they could identify the whereabouts of some of the militant" leaders, Rais told the Express 24/7 television network. "They were high-value targets."
The offensive in Swat is seen as a test of Pakistan's resolve to take on militants who have challenged the central government's rule by strengthening their influence in the border region with Afghanistan.
More than 1,300 militants and 105 soldiers have died so far, Abbas said, but he conceded there were few senior Taliban leaders among the dead.
"They are the center of the gravity of this movement, and unless and until they are killed, we cannot declare victory in this whole operation," he told reporters Saturday.
Abbas said that Fazlullah had been "targeted" three times so far in the campaign after intelligence reports suggested his whereabouts and that he may have been wounded. But there was no confirmation of Fazlullah's condition.
Security forces detained Alam and Khan during a raid last Thursday at a religious school near Swat.
The Taliban have vowed a campaign of retaliatory attacks for the military offensive, and a series of bombings and shootings have hit security forces and civilian targets across the northwest.
On Friday, an attacker wearing an explosive vest blew himself up inside a packed mosque in Haya Gai in a district near Swat, killing at least 33 people and wounding 40.
Atif-ur-Rehman, a top regional official, said villagers angered militants in the area last month by closing a road leading from their community to a nearby Taliban stronghold.
"They have been up in arms with militants. The move to block the Taliban's entry route to the village could be the main reason for the blast," he told The Associated Press.
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