Pakistan shrine suicide bombings kill 50

The device went off outside the shrine of Ahmed Sultan popularly known as Sakhi Sarwar in Dera Ghazi Khan district, local administration chief Iftikhar Sahu said. -- PHOTO: AFP

DERA GHAZI KHAN (Pakistan) - THE death toll rose to 50 on Monday after two suicide bombers unleashed carnage at a Sufi shrine in Pakistan where hundreds had gathered for a religious ceremony, officials said.

The bombers on Sunday struck the shrine of 13th century Sufi saint Ahmed Sultan, popularly known as Sakhi Sarwar, in Dera Ghazi Khan district of Punjab province, about 480km south-west of the capital Islamabad.

'We had 44 dead in our hospital. Six people died on the spot and their families took their bodies directly,' said Tariq Mehmood, an emergency ward official at Civil Hospital in Dera Ghazi Khan.

Local police officer Zahid Hussain Shah confirmed a death toll of 49. 'Most of the bodies have been identified and sent to their home towns for burial,' Mr Shah told AFP. It was the deadliest suicide attack in Pakistan since a mosque bombing killed 68 people on November 5 in the north-west area of Darra Adam Khel.

Islamist militants have increasingly targeted Sufi worshippers, who follow a mystical strain of Islam, in Muslim-majority Pakistan. Dera Ghazi Khan is close to the tribal area which is known as a hub of Taleban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants. The rugged tribal region is described by Washington as the most dangerous place on Earth and an Al-Qaeda headquarters.

More than 4,200 people have been killed across Pakistan in attacks blamed on homegrown Taleban and other Islamist extremist networks since government troops stormed a radical mosque in Islamabad in July 2007. -- AFP

Indian PM vows closer Pakistan ties

MOHALI (India) - INDIAN Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Wednesday that 'permanent reconciliation' was required with Pakistan, after he met his counterpart at the nations' cricket World Cup semi-final.

Mr Singh and Yousaf Raza Gilani held brief talks during the match, which India won, as the two leaders used the fixture to promote better ties between their rival countries.

India and Pakistan 'should be working together to find cooperative solutions and need permanent reconciliation to live together in dignity and honour,' Mr Singh said in a speech during the talks.

'We should put our ancient animosities behind us to attend to the problems of our nations,' he said. 

India's foreign secretary Nirupama Rao said that the match had 'provided impetus' to efforts to re-build cross-border relations.

India broke off official contacts with Islamabad in 2008 after the Mumbai attacks, which India blamed on Pakistani militants who wrought carnage in the city over three days, killing 166 people.

The two nuclear-armed nations have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947. 'The meeting reaffirmed the intention that both countries want to take the process of dialogue ahead,' Ms Rao said, adding that 'both sides have the same goal of normalisation of the relationship.' -- AFP

14 security personnel dead in Pakistan ambush

PESHAWAR (Pakistan) - A MILITANT ambush on a convoy of security forces in a restive Pakistani tribal region on Monday left 14 personnel dead, officials said.

The incident took place in the Shindhand area in the restive Khyber tribal region on the Afghan border.

'The personnel were returning to their base after carrying out a search operation in the nearby Sipah area when ambushed by militants,' a senior security official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

He said most of the casualties were caused when one of the mortars targeting the militants exploded in the barrel of the gun.

'Those martyred in the attack included a colonel and a captain,' he said.

Another security official confirmed the attack and casualties, saying that personnel of the paramilitary Frontier Corps were travelling in a convoy of up to four vehicles at the time of attack. -- AFP

India, Pakistan talk extremism and peace

NEW DELHI - TOP officials from India and Pakistan were due to meet on Monday in New Delhi to discuss counter-terrorism and the 2008 Mumbai attacks in a new effort to advance their slow-moving peace process.

The home secretaries of both countries are also expected to discuss the drugs trade during two days of talks that will look to build on recent momentum and a thaw in relations brought on by their shared love of cricket.

India and Pakistan will meet in the semi-final of the cricket World Cup on Wednesday in an explosive encounter that has been seized on by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as an opportunity to improve ties.

Singh has invited his Pakistani counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani to watch the game with him in what will be a rare meeting between the two leaders, who last sat down for talks in Bhutan in April last year.

The discussions on Monday between India's home secretary G.K. Pillai and his Pakistani counterpart Chaudhary Qamar Zaman are expected to focus on the Mumbai attacks of 2008, carried out by extremists who travelled from Pakistan.

India broke off formal peace talks with its neighbour after the attack that left 166 dead and has repeatedly called on Islamabad to bring the perpetrators to justice. Pakistan has charged seven people but none has been convicted. -- AFP

Clinton hints at strained US ties with Pakistan

WASHINGTON - US SECRETARY of State Hillary Clinton described relations between the United States and Pakistan on Sunday as 'very challenging,' a tacit admission of strained ties between the key allies.

Speaking after Pakistan boycotted a trilateral meeting on Afghanistan in Brussels in protest at a drone attack that killed 39 people, Mrs Clinton said Islamabad was caught between wanting to help and dealing with its own extremist threat.

'It's a very challenging relationship, because there have been some - some problems,' she said in an interview with the ABC program This Week. 'It's a very difficult relationship, because Pakistan is in a hard position, trying to figure out how it's going to contend with its own internal extremist threat,' she said.

'But I think, on the other hand, we've also developed good lines of communication, good opportunities for cooperation, but it's something we have to work on every day.' Mrs Clinton noted the cooperation of the Pakistani government in securing the release of Raymond Davis, a CIA contractor accused in a double murder, as well as in the fight against Al-Qaeda and Islamic extremism.

'We were very appreciative of getting our diplomat out of Pakistan, and that took cooperation by the government of Pakistan,' she said. 'We have cooperated very closely together in going after terrorists who pose a threat to both us and to the Pakistanis themselves.'

Washington always insisted that Davis had diplomatic immunity from prosecution. He was released earlier this month after a payment of US$2 million, but Mrs Clinton has denied the United States paid any compensation. -- AFP

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Bomb kills 34 at anti-Taleban funeral in Pakistan

Police and witnesses said the bomber had slipped into the congregation of more than 200 people attending funeral prayers for the wife of a known anti-Taliban militiaman in Adezai village, near Peshawar city. -- PHOTO: AP

PESHAWAR - A SUICIDE bomber targeting members of an anti-Taleban militia at a funeral in north-western Pakistan killed 34 people and wounded at least 45 others on Wednesday, police said.

Police and witnesses said the bomber had slipped into the congregation of more than 200 people attending funeral prayers for the wife of a known anti-Taliban militiaman in Adezai village, near Peshawar city.

Television footage showed bearded elderly men wearing blood-stained clothes rushing from the scene in panic. Prayer caps and slippers lay alongside scattered body parts at the prayer site, which was spattered with blood.

'We have received 34 dead bodies and 45 injured. Eleven of the injured are in a very critical condition. Some of the dead are in pieces,' Abdul Hameed Afridi, head of the main hospital in Peshawar city, told AFP.

Police officer Mohammad Ijaz Khan confirmed the bomber's target.

'The target of the bombing was members of the anti-Taleban militia,' Mr Khan said. -- AFP

Pakistan's intelligence ready to split with CIA

ISLAMABAD (Pakistan) - PAKISTAN'S ISI spy agency is ready to split with the CIA because of its frustration over what it calls heavy-handed pressure and its anger over what it believes is a covert US operation involving hundreds of contract spies, according to an internal document obtained by The Associated Press and interviews with US and Pakistani officials.

Such a move could seriously damage the US war effort in Afghanistan, limit a program targeting Al-Qaeda insurgents along the Pakistan frontier, and restrict Washington's access to information in the nuclear-armed country.

According to a statement drafted by the ISI, supported by interviews with officials, an already-fragile relationship between the two agencies collapsed following the shooting death of two Pakistanis by Raymond Davis, a US contracted spy who is in jail in Pakistan facing possible multiple murder charges.

'Post-incident conduct of the CIA has virtually put the partnership into question,' said a media statement prepared by the ISI but never released. A copy was obtained this week by the AP.

The statement accused the CIA of using pressure tactics to free Davis.

'It is hard to predict if the relationship will ever reach the level at which it was prior to the Davis episode,' the statement said. 'The onus of not stalling this relationship between the two agencies now squarely lies on the CIA.' -- AP

Pakistan intelligence says US gunman is CIA

Washington voiced fear for the safety of Raymond Davis (above), who says he acted in self-defence. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

ISLAMABAD - A PAKISTANI intelligence official said on Monday that an American in custody for killing two men was an undercover CIA contractor, setting off new friction in a crisis with the United States.

Washington voiced fear for the safety of Raymond Davis, who says he acted in self-defence. The United States has put intense pressure on Pakistan to free him, arguing that he enjoys diplomatic immunity.

But the unpopular government in Pakistan is also feeling heat from the political opposition not to cave in to US demands, with analysts even warning that the case could bring down the ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP).

'It is beyond any shadow of a doubt that he was working for CIA,' an official from Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency told AFP on condition of anonymity.

'He's on contract. He's not a regular CIA guy, but he's working for CIA. That's confirmed,' the Pakistani official said.

US Senator Lindsey Graham also last week referred to Davis as an 'agent.' Davis was arrested in eastern Pakistan, the base of virulently anti-Indian groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba which was linked to the 2008 siege of Mumbai. -- AFP

Pakistan judge blocks any move to hand over US gunman

LAHORE (Pakistan) - A PAKISTANI judge on Tuesday blocked any move to hand over to US authorities an American government employee, under investigation for double murder, and put his name on the exit control list.

Visiting US congressmen on Monday asked President Asif Ali Zardari to free Raymond Davis, who was arrested after killing two Pakistani motorcyclists in broad daylight in Lahore in what the American said was an act of self-defence.

But a lawyer petitioned the Lahore high court to block any move to hand Davis over to the United States, filing a petition under public interest laws.

'I am restraining him (from being handed over to US authorities). Whether he has or does not have (diplomatic) immunity will be decided by the court,' ruled Lahore high court chief justice Ijaz Ahmed Chaudhry on Tuesday.

'An order is issued to put his name on the ECL (exit control list). The case is adjourned for 15 days.' -- AFP

Bomb kills three in Pakistan

PESHAWAR - THREE people including two paramilitary soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb blast in north-west Pakistan's tribal district of Orakzai on Saturday, officials said.

An improvised explosive device planted by militants went off in the town of Ibrahimzai during a routine patrol by paramilitary soldiers, a security official said.

'Two soldiers and one civilian were killed in the blast,' Abdul Qadir, a local administration official, told AFP.

Seven other people - one soldier and six civilians - were wounded in the explosion near the bazaar in Ibrahimzai, he said.

A military official in the provincial capital Peshawar confirmed the incident, saying the wounded had been taken to the local hospital.

Orakzai is one of the most lawless areas in Pakistan's north-west tribal region, which is made up of seven rugged districts near the Afghan border. -- AFP

16 killed in Pakistan gas blast

PESHAWAR - A BLAST caused by exploding gas cylinders ripped through a minibus in a north-west Pakistani town on Monday, killing at least 16 people and wounding 11 others, police said.

The blast took place at Jawarza, near the restive north-western town of Hangu, after a pick-up truck collided with a passenger vehicle.

District police chief Abdul Rashid told AFP from the scene that a bomb disposal team had been called in to investigate, but later confirmed that the blast was caused when the two vehicles collided, causing the gas explosion.

Most vehicles in Pakistan are run on gas, which is half the price of petrol.

'At least 16 people were killed and 11 others wounded in a gas cylinder blast in a passenger wagon,' Mr Rashid told AFP from the scene of accident.

'I can see two exploded gas cylinders in the wreckage of the passenger wagon,' he said. -- AFP

Killings of newborn babies on the rise in Pakistan

Pakistani volunteers take the corpses of two infants from a private charity's morgue in Karachi during the burial service. -- PHOTO: AFP

KARACHI - THE lifeless bodies of two tiny babies are being given their final bath before burial in Karachi, after they were left to die in the southern Pakistani city's garbage dumps.

'They can only have been one or two days old,' says volunteer worker Mohammad Saleem, pointing at the two small corpses being gently washed by his colleagues at a charity's morgue.

In the conservative Muslim nation, where the birth of children outside of marriage is condemned and adultery is a crime punishable by death under strict interpretations of Islamic law, infanticide is a crime on the rise.

More than 1,000 infants - most of them girls - were killed or abandoned to die in Pakistan last year according to conservative estimates by the Edhi Foundation, a charity working to reverse the grim trend.

The infanticide figures are collected only from Pakistan's main cities, leaving out huge swathes of the largely rural nation, and the charity says that in December alone it found 40 dead babies left in garbage dumps and sewers.

The number of dead infants found last year - 1,210 - was up from 890 in 2008 and 999 in 2009, says the Edhi Foundation manager in Karachi, Anwar Kazmi. -- AFP

US to boost military aid to Pakistan: Report

WASHINGTON - THE United States will provide Pakistan with more military, intelligence and economic aid, even though some officials feel it is not doing enough to combat militants, The Washington Post reported late on Friday.

The newspaper said Vice President Joseph Biden would take that message to Pakistan when he visits next week.

The report came as a barrage of US missiles killed up to five militants in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal district on Friday, destroying a vehicle used by Islamist fighters, security officials said.

Pakistani security officials reported the strikes in what is reputedly the country's most impregnable Taliban and Al-Qaeda fortress.

US officials want Pakistan to launch a ground offensive there to eliminate the militant threat.

The United States does not confirm drone attacks, but its military and the Central Intelligence Agency operating in Afghanistan are the only forces that deploy the unmanned aircraft in the region. -- AFP

Pakistan bans road, rail onion exports to India

Pakistan this week banned overland onion exports to chief rival India. -- PHOTO: AP

ISLAMABAD - PAKISTAN this week banned overland onion exports to chief rival India in a bid to control rising prices at home for the South Asian food staple, the commerce ministry said on Friday.

'The exports triggered a shortage of onions in our domestic market,' a ministry spokesman told AFP.

'I can confirm the restriction has been imposed on exports of the commodity through the Wagah border,' he said, in reference to the land crossing between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan, who have fought three wars since 1947.

Exports of onions to India by sea, however, were not restricted, he said.

The clampdown was aimed at discouraging ordinary traders from trucking onions to India, currently facing a shortage of the vegetable, after consumers complained that costs have more than doubled in Pakistan in recent weeks.

Prices in Islamabad, where food items are generally more expensive than elsewhere, have risen from 40 Pakistani rupees last month to up to 90 rupees a kilo (S$2.57). -- AFP

Clinton says slain Pakistan governor 'great loss'

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemned the assassination of Pakistan's governor Salman Tasser, calling his death 'a great loss'. -- PHOTO: AFP

WASHINGTON - US SECRETARY of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday condemned the assassination of the governor of Pakistan's Punjab province, calling his death 'a great loss'.

Mr Salman Taseer was shot dead at an Islamabad market by a bodyguard who opposed his criticism of controversial blasphemy laws, officials said, plunging nuclear-armed Pakistan into deeper political chaos.

'We strongly condemn the assassination today in Pakistan of Punjab Provincial Governor Salman Taseer,' Mrs Clinton said in a statement.

'I had the opportunity to meet Governor Taseer in Pakistan and I admired his work to promote tolerance and the education of Pakistan's future generations. His death is a great loss,' the chief US diplomat said.

'Our deepest sympathies are with Governor Taseer's wife and children,' she added.

'The United States remains committed to helping the government and people of Pakistan as they persevere in their campaign to bring peace and stability to their country.' -- AFP

Pakistani governor who opposed blasphemy law slain

Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri, a man identified as a guard of the governor of Punjab province Salman Taseer, is detained at the site of Taseer's shooting in Islamabad. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

ISLAMABAD - THE governor of Pakistan's most dominant province was shot and killed on Tuesday by a bodyguard who authorities said was angry about his opposition to blasphemy laws carrying the death sentence for insulting the Muslim faith.

Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, regarded as a moderate voice in a country increasingly beset by zealotry, was a close ally of US-backed President Asif Ali Zardari.

He is the highest-profile Pakistani political figure to be assassinated since former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto three years ago, and his death underscores the growing danger in this country to those who dare challenge the demands of Islamist extremists.

Taseer was riddled by gunshots while walking to his car after an afternoon meal at Kohsar Market, a shopping centre in Islamabad popular with Westerners and wealthy Pakistanis.

Initial reports indicated the suspected gunman, a police commando guarding Taseer, unloaded up to 26 rounds from a Kalashnikov automatic rifle. The gunman could have fired that number of rounds in a matter of seconds. Other guards then forced the police commando to the ground, according to police and hospital officials.

'It was one shot first and then a burst,' said R.A. Khan, a witness who was drinking coffee at the time. 'I rushed and saw policemen over another police commando, who was lying on the road with his face down.' An intelligence official interrogating the suspect said the commando had been planning the assassination since learning three days ago that he would be deployed with the governor. -- AP

Pakistan coalition party to quit cabinet posts

KARACHI - PAKISTAN'S ruling coalition suffered a blow on Monday when the second-largest party in the alliance announced it was withdrawing its two ministers from the federal cabinet.

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) said it was pulling the ministers out because of differences with the ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP) of slain premier Benazir Bhutto.

The move comes just weeks after a prominent religious party walked out of the government, sparking fears the alliance could crumble.

An MQM statement said that government failed to curb corruption and control inflation and added that a decision to stay or leave the coalition at federal and provincial level would be taken in the near future.

'We have two ministers in the federal cabinet and as protest have withdrawn them, but we will not sit on opposition benches,' Haider Abbas Rizvi, a senior MQM leader, said.

Federal minister for ports and shipping Babar Ghauri and federal minister for overseas Pakistanis Farooq Sattar would resign on Tuesday, he said. -- AFP

Thousands fear hunger after Pakistan bombing

An injured victim of a suicide bombing in Bajur tribal region is treated at Lady Reading hospital in Peshawar, Pakistan. -- PHOTO: AP

KHAR (Pakistan) - SOME 300,000 desperately poor villagers impoverished by fighting in Pakistan's tribal belt are scrambling to feed themselves after a female suicide bomber killed 45 people outside a World Food Program food distribution centre, triggering a district wide suspension of the relief project.

Pakistan says the attack is a sign of insurgent desperation, but the bombing and ongoing battles challenge Islamabad's claims of victory over Al-Qaeda and the Taleban in this part of the porous north-west border.

WFP district coordinator Shahab Khan said on Sunday that all four food relief centres run by the United Nations agency in the Bajur district had been shut indefinitely since Saturday's bombing in the area's main town of Khar.

The WFP project in Bajur feeds 41,000 families - or 300,000 people - who returned to the district from camps for the displaced elsewhere in the country, even though their livelihoods having been ruined by fighting between Pakistan troops and insurgents.

Painda Khan, a 48-year-old farmer who abandoned his crops months ago, said his family of 11 was now desperate for their rations of rice, flour, lentils, cooking oil and high-energy biscuits that he had been going to pick up on Monday.

'We have been borrowing food from neighbors for the last five days,' said Khan, adding that his family last received supplies on Nov 25. -- AP

Food centres shut after bombing

Injured victims of the suicide bombing are treated at a local hospital in Khar. -- PHOTO: AP

KHAR (Pakistan) - AUTHORITIES have temporarily closed food aid distribution centres in northwest Pakistan, an official said on Sunday, a day after a female suicide bomber killed 45 people and wounded scores more outside a World Food Program depot in the region.

Shafiq Khan, an official with the WFP food distribution project, said the regional government ordered the temporary closure of all four food relief centres in the Bajur district following Saturday's bombing in the area's main town of Khar.

The WFP project in Bajur feeds thousands of people who have been displaced since early 2009 by fighting between the Pakistan military and insurgents in the country's rugged tribal regions along the Afghan border.

It was not immediately clear how long the food distribution points would be closed.

The decision to temporarily shut down the programme's food depots over security concerns was prompted by Saturday's attack, when a burqa-clad bomber lobbed two hand grenades before detonating her explosive belt among a crowd of some 300 people outside the United Nations agency's aid centre in Khar.

It was the latest militant strike against the Pakistani authorities' control over the key tribal region bordering Afghanistan. -- AP