Friday, March 2, 2012

Pakistan - O.K. Corral on steroids: Gunfights, military airstrikes and a large suicide bombing killed 70

A third world Islamic shithole that has nuclear weapons and is about one well placed truck bomb from jihadist anarchy.
(NYT) Gunfights, military airstrikes and a large suicide bombing on Friday killed as many as 70 people in the tribal agencies bordering Peshawar, the provincial capital of northwestern Pakistan, in some of the worst violence in months in a strategic corner of the country. [...]

In Khyber Agency, along the border with Afghanistan, a suicide bomber set off an explosion at the gates of a militant base, killing 23 people and wounding at least three others, said the local administrator, Mutahirzeb Khan. Many of those killed belonged to Lashkar-e-Islam, a local militant group that has imposed Taliban-style strictures on the local population. [...]

Fighting also raged in the Orakzai tribal agency, to the west of Peshawar, where military fighter jets attacked two suspected bases of the main Pakistani Taliban group. The security official said 15 militants died in the attack. [...]

On Friday, a Taliban faction claimed responsibility for the shooting, telling Reuters that it was in retaliation for Chinese government attacks on Muslim separatists in the western Chinese province of Xinjiang.

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