Suicide Bomber Kills at Least 50 in Pakistan Mosque

[Coventina]

Source: Washington Post

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Mar. 27 -- A suicide bomber detonated his explosives Friday in a crowded mosque in northwest Pakistan, killing at least 50 people and leaving more bodies buried in the rubble of the building, officials said.

The attack, coming on the same day that President Obama will introduce a new strategy to fight terror and extremism in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, took place in the Khyber tribal agency, a semi-autonomous zone near the Afghan border that has been plagued by Islamist insurgents, criminal gangs and tribal conflicts. It is a busy cross-border corridor and was a major avenue for U.S. military supplies into Afghanistan until a series of armed attacks on convoys and truck depots last year made the route too dangerous to navigate.

The attack was the most lethal bombing in Pakistan since a suicide truck bomb devastated the luxury Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, the capital, last September, killing 54 people and injuring more than 200.

Officials said the death toll could rise to more than 70, a grim and dramatic reminder that Pakistan, a Muslim nation of 160 million that shares a porous 1,500-mile border with Afghanistan, has not been able to quell terror attacks despite the efforts of a large professional army and other security forces.



Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/27/AR2009032700485.html

[bottomtheweaver]

1. Nicely timed. n/t

[ohio2007]

2. collaborators are not civilians say Taliban so it looks like they are winning the hearts and minds

the old fashionewd way

[Idealism]

3. Another tragedy in a part of the world most of us don't even think about.

Sad day.