Pak soldier killed in car bomb attack at security post

One Pakistani army soldier was killed and nine more people, at least one of them a military soldier, were wounded in a car bomb attack on their post in northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday morning. A bomber rammed his explosive-packed car into the army security post in Do Aaba area of NWFP's southern district of Hangu as the army men were checking vehicles at a check point, District Police Officer Sajjad Khan (DPO) said. Do Aaba area is part of the Hangu district and located close to the Orakzai and Kurram tribal agencies. Orakzai Agency was scene to a suicide blast at a Jirga [gathering] of tribal elders on October 10. More than one hundred people were killed and scores more were injured as a bomber blew himself up amidst the tribal gathering. Hundreds of people were killed and thousands more migrated from Kurram Agency due to the sectarian clashes between shia and sunni sects since mid-2008. Omar Sarfaraz, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) in Tal tehsil of Hangu district, said the slain army soldier had been identified as Haq Nawaz. He said all the injured were rushed to the Combined Military Hospital (CMH) Hangu, where emergency was declared after the blast. Hangu is among the troubled districts of Pakistan's North-Western province or NWFP where Taliban-related violence is on the rise over the previous one year. Army troops were called in the district on the request of the provincial government in July this year following reports that Taliban from the neighbouring Orakzai Agency were planning to attack the district. With the help of Pakistani army, the paramilitary troops and police forced the Taliban out of the district. Later, the government and the Taliban signed a peace agreement with the militants under which the Taliban had to accept the writ of the government. The two sides released each others' prisoners under the agreement. Although a temporary peace was restored as a result of the clandestine agreement, Taliban fear was always there because of its proximity with the Orakzai tribal agency. The Pashtun-dominated North-Western province also known as Pakhtunkhwa by the nationalist parties and their followers there, is in the grip of bomb blasts, suicide attacks and other Taliban-related violence. On Sunday night, a rocket was fired on the sole air port in the city of Peshawar, capital of the NWFP, but it missed the target and landed in an uninhabited area. Police said the rocket was fired from an undisclosed location and that they were investigating. To the north of Peshawar is located the Mohmand Agency where the Pakistani government is planning to launch a military operation to curb the rising Taliban activity there. Bordering the troubled Bajaur Agency to its northwest, Mohmand is located just 17 kilometres north of Peshawar. Security officials had detained a suicide bomber three days back in Mohmand. The bomber was presented before journalists on Monday. According to a spokesman for the Frontier Constabulary (FC), the would-be bomber, who had got training along with five others in Waziristan region, had informed about the presence of 11 al-Qaeda members in Mohmand Agency. The FC official claimed that some of the al-Qaeda leaders had close links with the Taliban chief in Mohmand, Abdul Ali, alias Omar Khalid. In the northwest, situation continues to deteriorate in the Khyber Agency, which is connecting the city of Peshawar with Afghanistan through the historical Khyber Pass. The nearly 40-kilometer zigzag road from Peshawar to Torkham is the key route for NATO logistic from Pakistan port city of Karachi to Afghanistan. On Monday, militants burnt a container by firing a rocket while looted three trailers carrying wheat to Afghanistan. Besides the presence of a militant leader in the name of Mangal Bagh with his self-proclaimed Lashkar-e-Islam or the army of Islam, men loyal to the Waziristan-based Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsood have also started their activities in Khyber Agency over the previous three months.