Suicide Bomber blasts Hospital Emergency Ward: 32 killed

In the most gruesome of suicide attacks, a 20 year old Suicide Bomber, belonging to the militant, banned outfit, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, blew himself up near the emergency ward of a hospital in Central Pakistan -- killing 32 patients, visitors, staff and police and seriously injuring another 55.

The incident occured in the District hospital of Dera Ismail Khan, a city bordering the Pushtun province of NWFP and the Punjab, which has seen some tension between the Sunni and Shia sects of Islam in the near past. Many of those gathered in the emergency ward at the time of the attack were accompanying Shia leader Basit Ali who had been injured in an armed attack. Owing to apprehensions about a conflagaration between Shias and Sunnis, shops and other businesses in the city shut down in the aftermath of the attack.

However, Taliban spokesman, Maulvi Omar who phoned Pakistan's leading English language daily, the Dawn, soon after the attack to claim responsiblity alleged that the target of the attack was police rather than any religous sect. Omar said the attacks would continue untill military action in Bajaur and Swat -- two regions in Western Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan -- continues.

A wave of indignation has swept the country over the last year against the perpetrators of these heinous, indiscriminate suicide bombings and their twisted version of Islam. In fact, despite his general world-wide unpopularity, people refer to George Bush's characterization immediately after 911 to the affect that the terrorists had "hijacked Islam." Religous parties crashed to a resounding defeat in the recent Pakistan general election.