Pakistani Suicide Bombers Target Top Security

ISLAMABAD- Suicide bombers attacked a senior military officer yesterday in Quetta, western Pakistan, killing 23 people including eight soldiers and the officer's wife. Police said they suspected Taliban militants were behind the attack, which comes two days after the army said it had arrested a senior al-Qaida operative in the city. The first bomber struck as the deputy chief of the paramilitary Frontier Corps, which operates across Balochistan province, drove away   home in a tightly guarded area of the city. A second attacker then stormed into the house, hurling grenades before blowing himself up. The force of the blasts brought down the walls of the house and nearby offices, and ripped through passing rickshaws. Police said the targeted officer, Farrukh Shehzad, had been wounded, but the extent of his injuries was not clear. The dead included eight of his guards, his wife and two of his children. No group claimed responsibility for the attack but immediate suspicions fell on al-Qaida-affiliated Taliban militants. On Monday, the army said it had arrested Younis al-Mouritani, described as a high-ranking al-Quetta. Operative, and two associates, in a Quetta suburb. Al-Qaida is still reeling from the northwestern tribal belt, which have targeted its most senior militants. As the strikes have intensified, some al-Qaida fighters have fled into nearby Balochistan, where the drones do not operate. The bitter rift between the US Central Intelligence Agency and Pakistani intelligence. But officials from both countries hailed the latest arrest as a sign that relation-ship may be on the mend. Balochistan, a vast province along the afghan border, has long been a hub for Islamist insurgents. Its northern regions are used by the Afghan Taliban as a rear base for attacks on NATO force inside Afghanistan. The Taliban's ruling council, known as the Quetta shura, is also believed to be based there, although recent reports suggest it may have effectively shifted to Karachi. Other possible suspects in the attack include Baloch nationalist rebels, with whom the FC has been engaged in a bitter war of attrition for at least six years. But the nationalists do not have a track record of using suicide bombers. 

The GUARDIAN