Monday, September 6, 2010

Suicide Car Bomber Hits Pakistani Police Station, 19 Killed


It's pretty obvious that al Qaeda and the Taliban are in full chaos mode as yet another suicide bombing has rocked Pakistan. This morning, a suicide bomber drove his vehicle, loaded with explosives, into a police station in the northwest part of the country killing 19 in the act.

From the report at The Long War Journal:



A suicide bomber killed 19 people and wounded scores more in an attack on a police station in Pakistan's troubled northwest today.

The suicide bomber rammed a car packed with explosives into the back wall of a police station in the district of Lakki Marwat in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Between 40 and 50 policemen were at the station at the time, according to SAMAA; nine policemen and 10 civilians were among those killed.

Lakki Marwat was also the scene of a horrific mass casualty suicide attack on New Year's Day. A suicide bomber detonated his SUV packed with explosives as Pakistanis were gathered for a volleyball match in the town of Shah Hassan Khel. The attack killed 90 people. The Taliban carried out the attack in an attempt to break the will of local tribal leaders who had raised a militia to keep the Taliban out of their town.

Today's suicide attack is the fourth in Pakistan since the Sept. 1 coordinated attack on a Shia procession in Lahore, the capital of Punjab province. More than 30 people were killed in the blasts. On Sept. 3, suicide bombers killed more than 60 Shia protesters in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province, and a guard outside an Ahmadi mosque in Mardan, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

As you can see from the article, this is the fourth suicide attack this month - that's nearly one per day and the body counts have been horrific. And even though this attack will probably be attributed to the Taliban, we have to keep in mind that a suicide car bombing of a police station is vintage al Qaeda tactics - this is part of the influence that al Qaeda has brought to the Taliban inside of Pakistan.

It's my view that Pakistan is reaching a tipping point - I don't think it will be long until one of two things happens....the civilian population will finally succumb to the terror and demand that the government make concessions to the terrorists OR the Pakistani government will have to move into all of the northwestern areas and try to gut them out of Taliban and the other elements.



Suicide bomber kills 19 in attack on Pakistani police station


A suicide bomber killed 19 people and wounded scores more in an attack on a police station in Pakistan's troubled northwest today.

The suicide bomber rammed a car packed with explosives into the back wall of a police station in the district of Lakki Marwat in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Between 40 and 50 policemen were at the station at the time, according to SAMAA; nine policemen and 10 civilians were among those killed.

Lakki Marwat was also the scene of a horrific mass casualty suicide attack on New Year's Day. A suicide bomber detonated his SUV packed with explosives as Pakistanis were gathered for a volleyball match in the town of Shah Hassan Khel. The attack killed 90 people. The Taliban carried out the attack in an attempt to break the will of local tribal leaders who had raised a militia to keep the Taliban out of their town.

Today's suicide attack is the fourth in Pakistan since the Sept. 1 coordinated attack on a Shia procession in Lahore, the capital of Punjab province. More than 30 people were killed in the blasts. On Sept. 3, suicide bombers killed more than 60 Shia protesters in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province, and a guard outside an Ahmadi mosque in Mardan, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Both the Taliban and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi al Almi, a front for the Punjabi Taliban, claimed to have carried out the attacks in Lahore and Quetta. A spokesman for Qari Hussain Mehsud, the Taliban's master trainer of suicide bombers, said that the attacks were to avenge the murder of Sunnis and threatened that more suicide bombers were ready to strike.

Qari Hussain proudly took credit for the Quetta strikes and also promised to strike in the West. "We take pride in taking responsibility for the Quetta attack," he told Reuters on Sept. 3. "We will launch attacks in America and Europe very soon."

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