U.S. spy Aircraft Kill Seven People at Afghan border

Miranshah, Pakistan spy aircraft of the United States, Saturday, firing a missile into a complex three insurgents in Pakistan’s tribal regions near the Afghan border, killing seven militants, security officials said. The attack happened at 21 o’clock local time  in Marsikhel area, 20 km east of Miranshah, North Waziristan town of importance, known as a center of Taliban and Al Qaeda linked militants.

Citizenship seven guerrillas were killed was not immediately clear, said a senior Pakistani security officer told AFP on condition of anonymity. Another officer confirmed the attack and killed it, and added: “We do not know whether high-value target present in the area at the time of the attack.” The attack came a day after seven Pakistani soldiers were killed and 16 wounded, when militants armed with rifles and rocket launchers attacked their convoy, a routine mission to the town of Miranshah dai Dattakhel

U.S. forces have launched a spy plane attack against the commander hidden Taliban and Al Qaeda linked militants in tribal area in northwestern part of the country, where guerrillas build their hideouts in the mountainous areas outside the direct control of government. U.S. officials said spy plane attack is a very important weapon in the fight to defeat Al Qaeda and the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan to reverse, where Washington’s troops led the big waves.

Critics say high-tech attack is risky to make the local population into a radical, especially if the civilians were killed. The importance of North Waziristan in the spy plane attack was increased from a Jordanian al-Qaeda double agent blew himself up killing seven CIA staff in a province neighboring Afghanistan in December. More than 870 people have been killed in nearly 100 spy plane attack in Pakistan since August 2008.

Washington calls the Pakistani tribal areas, the global headquarters of Al Qaidda and most dangerous regions in the world. Guerrillas in the area believed to have helped nearly nine-year insurgency in Afghanistan. North Waziristan is a stronghold of Al Qaeda, Taliban and Pakistani and Afghan militants affiliated with the Haqqani network, which was established by Jalaluddin Haqqani commander of the Afghan war and now led by his son, Sirajuddin, are ambitious. Taliban and associated groups of Al Qaeda blamed for a wave of suicide attacks and bombings that have killed nearly 3300 people in Pakistan since 2007. (AFP)

24 people died in bomb attacks at a secondary school and a crowded market in the city of Peshawar, Pakistan

Peshawar, Pakistan At least 24 people died in bomb attacks at a secondary school and a crowded market in the city of Peshawar, Pakistan, Monday, officials said. Those attacks, which occurred with a few hours time difference between one and another, making the number of victims killed in bombings in Pakistan’s northwest to 73 in three days. Suicide attacks last weekend, characterized by the Taliban killed 49 people in the town of Kohat.

On Monday evening in Peshawar market Qissa Khawani, a suicide bomb attacker walked into the crowd and blew himself up. An AFP reporter at the scene saw scattered shoes, pieces of body and car were destroyed. “Twenty-three people were killed, including three policemen. At least 27 people hospitalized longer,” said senior police official told AFP Imran Kishwar. Senior provincial ministers Bashir Bilour confirm that toll.

Shafqat bomb squad chief Malik told reporters the explosion was caused by an attacker wearing a bomb vest weighing six to eight kilograms. We have found the attacker’s head and feet,” he added. The blast came after protesters who marched against rising inflation and power outages left the area, said some police.

Several hours earlier, a boy who was eight years old were killed and at least 10 people were injured in a bomb attack outside a middle school in Peshawar. Police did not say who had put the bomb in a city hit by Taliban attacks. Bombing came after three suicide attacks within 24 hours killed 49 people in the town of Kohat, Pakistan’s northwest.

More than 3200 people died in suicide attacks and bombings in Pakistan in three years. The violence was blamed on Muslim militants opposed to alliance with the U.S. government. Pakistan’s increasing international pressure to crush militant groups in the region and the northwest tribal zone amid rising attacks cross-border rebel against international forces in Afghanistan.

Pakistan’s tribal areas, particularly Bajaur, plagued by violence since hundreds of Taliban and Al-Qaeda rebels fled to the region after the US-led invasion in late 2001 toppled the Taliban government in Afghanistan. Pakistani forces launched air and ground offensive into the South Waziristan tribal region on October 17, with 30,000 soldiers who assisted jet fighter and helicopter guns.

Although there is resistance in South Waziristan, many officials and analysts believe that most of the Taliban insurgents had fled to neighboring areas of North Waziristan and Orakzai. North Waziristan is the stronghold of the Taliban, militants associated with Al-Qaeda and the Haqqani network, which is famous for attacking American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, and the U.S. make that area as a target of missile attacks unmanned aircraft.

Some analysts have also warned that the Taliban and their allies will be stepped up attacks on security forces in Bajaur and other tribal areas to divert the focus of attention from South Waziristan. Security forces conduct large-scale operation against Islamic militants in the Mohmand and Bajaur in August 2008. In February 2009, the military said that net Bajaur after a fierce battle for months, but unrest continues.

According to the military, more than 1,500 militants have been killed since they launched an offensive in Bajaur in early August 2008, including Al-Qaeda’s operational commander in the area, Abu Saeed Al-Masri is an Egyptian. The area was also hit by a missile attack that almost about Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s second person, in January 2006. U.S. forces declared, that border area is used for militant groups as a place to do training, a rearrangement of forces and launch attacks against coalition forces in Afghanistan. ( AFP)

45 civilians were killed in an airstrike in the Khyber tribal region

Pakistan acknowledged yesterday that at least 45 civilians were killed in an airstrike in the Khyber tribal region, an admission that could undermine the military’s anti-Taleban campaign in the country’s northwest region. Hundreds of tribesmen demonstrated against the attack in Sera Vela village, which was hit by air force jets at the weekend, causing the worst civilian casualties in a single incident in Pakistan’s war against Islamic militants. Tribal elders said that up to 71 people were killed in the strike, denying there any militants in the area.

A senior military official told The Times that civilians were among dozens of people killed in airstrikes aimed at insurgent hideouts along the Afghan border. He said that the attack also killed 30 militants.

The military rarely admits civilian deaths, which, according to some reports, have mounted in recent months as Pakistan intensifies its offensive against al-Qaeda backed militants in the lawless tribal region. The military had earlier denied that there were any civilian casualties in the weekend attack.

The military official insisted the military had received credible intelligence that militants had been hiding in the area. Security officials said that a large numbers of Taleban fleeing the military operation in South Waziristan had moved to the Khyber tribal region.

Tribal elders and residents disputed the military’s account, saying that there was no militant sanctuary in the area. Many of those killed in the attack belonged to the Kookikhel tribe which has a history of co-operating with the military in the anti-Taleban campaign. Most families in the village have sons in the security forces and many retired army and paramilitary soldiers were among the dead and injured.

Kashmalo Khan, 63, a retired paramilitary soldier whose right leg was fractured, said that he lost 11 family members in the attack. “The bombing continued as people were busy in relief work,” said Mr Khan, who was being treated in a Peshawar hospital. “There is not a single Taleban in our area. The military was given wrong information.”

Another resident said the house that was initially bombed belonged to Hamid Khan, whose two sons were serving in the Frontier Corps. “They had nothing to do with the Taleban,” said Hazar Gul, a resident of Sera Vela.

Sera Vella is a small border village in Khyber, one of the seven semi autonomous tribal regions where the Pakistani army has been conducting operations against Islamic militants. Analysts said that such a large number of civilian deaths could undermine the military’s efforts to mobilise public support for its anti-Taleban campaign. The incident has provided a strong propaganda tool for militants.

“The attack has killed the people most directly affected by the Taleban savagery. It may now turn these people against the military,“ said Rifaat Hussain, professor of Security Studies at Quai-e-Azam University in Islamabad. “The family members of the victims could become easy recruits for the militants.”

Tension ran high in the area, where hundreds of tribesmen joined an anti-Government rally demanding an apology from the military. They also demanded compensation for the family of the victims.

Thousands of Pakistan troops have been involved in the biggest ever offensive against militants in the tribal regions which had become a haven for the Taleban and al-Qaeda.

Pakistan’s military effort to clear the borderland of insurgents who have also been involved in the attacks on Nato troops across the border in Afghanistan has earned praise from Britain and the US administration. The offensive is seen as being critical to the success of the new US Afghan war strategy.

The army, backed by the air force, has recently expanded its operation to Orakzai and Khyber tribal regions after driving out insurgents from South Waziristan, which was also the headquarters of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, the militant group responsible for most of the recent terrorist attacks inside the country.

About 200,000 have fled the Orakzai and Khyber regions, swelling the total number of displaced people. According to the United Nations 1.3 million people fleeing from the conflict zone have taken refuge in neighboring towns in the North West Frontier Province.

missile attack launched by the United States (U.S.)

Miranshah A missile attack launched by the United States (U.S.) today, killing seven people in Pakistan. Death of seven people the victims took place in two separate attacks. The death toll is unknown is a member of the militant Taliban.This attack took place in the village Hamzoni, North Waziristan. This region is a suspected militant hideout of Taliban and al-Qaeda terrorist group. U.S. missile of unmanned bombers usually operate in Pakistan.”U.S. bomber aircraft fired five missiles at two vehicles used by members of the militants,” said a senior Pakistani military official was quoted as saying by AFP, Wednesday (17/3/2010).”Five militants were killed in this attack,” said a military official said.At the same time, a U.S. missile attack also occurred in the same village. This second missile attack killing two members of the Taliban.

Pakistan A pair of suicide bombers targeting army vehicles detonated explosives within seconds of each other Friday

LAHORE, Pakistan A pair of suicide bombers targeting army vehicles detonated explosives within seconds of each other Friday, killing at least 39 people in this eastern city and wounding nearly 100, police said. It was the fourth major attack in Pakistan this week, indicating Islamist militants are stepping up violence after a period of relative calm.About ten of those killed were soldiers, said Lahore police chief Parvaiz Rathore.

The bombers, who were on foot, struck RA Bazaar, a residential and commercial neighborhood where several security agencies have facilities. Security forces swarmed the area as thick black smoke rose into the sky and bystanders rushed the injured into ambulances. Video being shot with a mobile phone just after the first explosion showed a large burst of orange flame suddenly erupting in the street, according to GEO TV, which broadcast a short clip of the footage shot by Tabraiz Bukhari.”Oh my God! Oh my God! Who are these beasts? Oh my God!” Bukhari can be heard shouting after the blast in a mixture of English and Urdu.Senior police official Tariq Saleem Dogar said 39 people were killed, and another 95 were hurt. Some of the wounded were missing limbs, lying in pools of blood after the enormous explosions, eyewitness Afzal Awan said.

“I saw smoke rising everywhere,” Awan told reporters. “A lot of people were crying.”No group immediately claimed responsibility, but suspicion quickly fell on the Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaida.The militants are believed to have been behind scores of attacks in U.S.-allied Pakistan over the last several years, including a series of strikes that began in October and lasted around three months, killing some 600 people in apparent retaliation for an army offensive along the Afghan border.In more recent months, the attacks were smaller, fewer and confined to remote regions near Afghanistan.But on Monday, a suicide car bomber struck a building in Lahore where police interrogated high-value suspects – including militants – killing at least 13 people and wounding dozens. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility.Also this week, suspected militants attacked the offices of World Vision, a U.S.-based Christian aid group, in the northwest district of Mansehra, killing six Pakistani employees, while a bombing at a small, makeshift movie theater in the main northwest city of Peshawar killed four people.The attacks show that the loose network of insurgents angry with Islamabad for its alliance with the U.S. retain the ability to strike throughout Pakistan despite pressure from army offensives and American missile strikes against militant targets.

The violence also comes amid signs of a Pakistani crackdown on Afghan Taliban and al-Qaida operatives using its soil. Among the militants known to have been arrested is the Afghan Taliban’s No. 2 commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.The Pakistani Taliban, meanwhile, are believed to have lost their top commander, Hakimullah Mehsud, in a U.S. missile strike in January. The group has denied Mehsud is dead but has failed to prove he’s still alive.

Militant attacks in Pakistan frequently target security forces, though civilian targets have not escaped.During the bloody wave of attacks that began in October – coinciding with the army’s ground offensive against the Pakistani Taliban in the South Waziristan tribal area – Lahore was hit several times.In mid-October, three groups of gunmen attacked three security facilities in the eastern city, a rampage that left 28 dead. Twin suicide bombings at a market there in December killed around 50 people.(AP)

bomb blast at a mosque in Pakistan's northwestern tribal belt killed 29 people including some militants

PESHAWAR, Pakistan A bomb blast at a mosque in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal belt killed 29 people including some militants Thursday, underscoring the relentless security threat here even as Pakistani-U.S. cooperation against extremism appears on the upswing.The attack in Khyber tribal region came as U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke met with Pakistan’s prime minister in Islamabad, the capital. It also followed revelations that Pakistani authorities have been picking up Afghan Taliban leaders on their soil, a longtime U.S. demand.

The explosion tore through a mosque in the Aka Khel area of Khyber, killing at least 29 people and wounding some 50 others, local official Jawed Khan said. Earlier reports had said the blast occurred in the Orakzai area at a cattle market.The two areas border one another, and the market is apparently near the mosque.Officials were still investigating whether the explosion was caused by a suicide bomber or a planted device.No group claimed responsibility, but Khan said the dead included militants from Lashkar-e-Islam, an insurgent group in Khyber that has clashed with another militant outfit known as Ansarul Islam. Both espouse Taliban-style ideologies.Earlier this week, officials confirmed that a joint CIA-Pakistani security operation had captured the No. 2 Afghan Taliban commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi.On Thursday, an Afghan official told The Associated Press that around the same time — some two weeks ago — two Taliban leaders from northern Afghanistan also were arrested in Pakistan by Pakistani authorities.The U.S. and Pakistan have said very little on the record about the arrests, but they could signal a shift in Pakistani policy. Pakistan has long frustrated the Americans by either denying that the Afghan Taliban use its soil or doing little to root them out.

The arrests could mean that Pakistan has decided to turn on the Afghan Taliban, a group that it helped nurture as a strategic ally against longtime rival India, though some suspect the Pakistanis were forced to act because the U.S. had solid intelligence on Baradar that it could not deny.The arrests came as Western and Afghan troops fight the Taliban for control of Marjah town in southern Afghanistan’s Helmand province.Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told Holbrooke that the U.S. should take into account Pakistan’s concerns that the Marjah offensive could lead to Afghan refugees and militants heading to Pakistan’s southwest and northwest, according to Gilani’s office.

The pair also discussed U.S. humanitarian aid efforts, with Gilani pressing for a quicker release of funds. The U.S. has pledged $7.5 billion in aid to Pakistan over the next five years.Talking with reporters in Kabul on Wednesday, Holbrooke said the U.S. was restructuring the way it doles out aid to Pakistan and intends to consult more with the Pakistanis and pursue more visible projects.”It is very, very time consuming work because of the huge, long lead times of contracts, because of the congressional role,” he said.

Pakistani military confirmed on Wednesday that the Taliban's top military commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar had been captured

ISLAMABAD The Pakistani military confirmed on Wednesday that the Afghan Taliban’s top military commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, had been captured.U.S. and Pakistani officials who declined to be identified said on Tuesday Baradar had been captured in the Pakistani city of Karachi in a raid by Pakistani and U.S. agents.”At the conclusion of detailed identification procedure, it has been confirmed that one of the persons arrested happens to be Mullah Baradar,” the military said.It declined to say where he had been caught or to give other details, citing security reasons.The capture came as U.S. forces spearhead one of NATO’s biggest offensives against the Taliban in Afghanistan in an early test of U.S. President Barack Obama’s troop surge policy.U.S. officials and analysts said it was too soon to tell whether Pakistan’s cooperation against Baradar would be extended to other top militants on the U.S. hit list.The arrest followed months of behind-the-scenes prodding by U.S. officials who saw inaction by Islamabad as a major threat to their Afghan war strategy.

Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik had on Tuesday declined to confirm Baradar’s capture, saying a large number of people had fled operations by NATO forces in Afghanistan to Pakistan and many had been picked up.He denied that there had been any joint operation by Pakistani and U.S. agents.Though nuclear-armed Pakistan is a U.S. ally, anti-U.S. sentiment runs high and many people have long been suspicious of the U.S.-led campaign against militancy and oppose any U.S. security operations in Pakistan.

“HE IS WITH US”A Pakistani intelligence official said security agents had been searching for Baradar in the southwestern city of Quetta, where the United States says a Taliban leadership council is based.

“Sensing that he might be arrested, he somehow slipped out of Quetta and into Karachi, maybe in disguise. That’s where we arrested him, about four days back,” said the official, who declined to be identified.”He is with us and is being interrogated.”Asked if the United States was involved in the questioning, he said: “Yes of course. We have that sort of cooperation with them.”Baradar’s arrest comes amid a renewed drive for peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban.Asked if the Taliban commander could help with any reconciliation process, the Pakistani agent said: “It might lead to that eventually … Anything is possible but so far we have not come to that.”Pakistan is anxious to have a say in post-war Afghanistan in order to limit the influence of old rival India there.Anger in Pakistan toward the United States has been exacerbated by attacks by pilotless U.S. drone aircraft on militants in lawless enclaves along the Afghan border.

In the latest strike, a U.S. drone fired a missile into the North Waziristan region on the Afghan border, killing at least three militants, Pakistani intelligence officials said.The drone targeted a militant compound in the village of Tapi, about 15 km (9 miles) east of Miranshah, the main town in the region, which is a hotbed of Taliban and al Qaeda militants. It was the second attack on the village this week.There was no information about the identity of those killed or of three men wounded in the strike, they said.Pakistan objects to the drone strikes, saying they are a violation of its sovereignty and complicate its efforts against militancy.The Pakistani army has made gains against militants battling the state over the past 10 months but it has ruled out a major offensive against Afghan Taliban factions on its soil, saying its forces are already stretched.(Reuters)

Pakistani lawyers for five young Americans accused of contacting militants over the Internet and plotting terrorist attacks sought their release on bail

SARGODHA,Pakistani lawyers for five young Americans accused of contacting militants over the Internet and plotting terrorist attacks sought their release on bail on Tuesday, saying the prosecution lacked evidence.The students, in their 20s and from the U.S. state of Virginia, were detained in December in the central Pakistani town of Sargodha, 190 km (120 miles) southeast of the capital.They have not been formally charged, but could face lengthy prison terms if found guilty.The case of the Americans has underscored global security dangers posed by the Internet as militants use cyberspace to evade tighter international security measures and plot holy war.

A defense lawyer for the five, who appeared in an anti-terrorism court in Sargodha, requested bail, saying allegations against them were “vague”.”No substantial evidence is available to show their guilt,” the lawyer, Mohammad Shahid Kamal Khan, told reporters.

“It’s a violation of their legal and fundamental rights to keep them in confinement,” he said, adding he expected the court to decide on the bail request on Wednesday.The five told the court earlier they only wanted to provide fellow Muslims in Afghanistan with medical and financial help.

They have accused the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and Pakistani police of torturing them and trying to frame them.Pakistani authorities have denied the accusations of mistreatment, which the five repeated on Tuesday, saying authorities were trying to force then back to the United States on “phony charges”.

“We have been threatened to be tortured again if we continued to speak out the truth,” one of the five wrote on a piece of tissue paper dropped from a police van as they arrived at court.Khalid Farooq, the father of one of the accused, said they were innocent. “There is no question about that,” he said.Two of the five are of Pakistani origin, one of Egyptian, one of Yemeni and one of Eritrean origin. They were arrested days after arriving in Pakistan.

Police have said emails showed they contacted Pakistani militants who had planned to use them for attacks in Pakistan, a front-line state in the U.S.-led war against militancy.Pakistan is struggling against al Qaeda-linked militants and is under pressure from Washington to help stabilize neighboring Afghanistan, where a Taliban insurgency is raging.The United States says Pakistan must crack down harder on militants who cross into Afghanistan and attack U.S.-led troops. (Reuters)

Pakistan teror attack a warning to anti-Taliban tribes

Pakistani paramilitary soldiers

SHAH HASAN KHEL, Pakistan  A suicide car bombing that killed 88 people on a volleyball field sent a bloody New Year’s warning to Pakistanis who have formed militias to fend off Taliban insurgents in the northwestern region near the Afghan border.The attack on the outskirts of Lakki Marwat city was one of the deadliest in recent Pakistani history. As local tribesmen prepared for funerals Saturday, rescuers searched rubble for more bodies, and many in the area were too terrified to speculate who staged the assault.

The suicide bomber detonated some 550 pounds (250 kilograms) of high-intensity explosives on the crowded field in Shah Hasan Khel village during a volleyball tournament held Friday near a meeting of anti-Taliban elders. The elders, who had helped set up an anti-Taliban militia in the area, were probably the actual target, police said.

Lakki Marwat district is near South Waziristan, a tribal region where the army has been battling the Pakistani Taliban since October.
The military operation was undertaken with the backing of the U.S., which is eager for Pakistan to free its tribal belt of militants believed to be involved in attacks on Western troops in Afghanistan. The offensive has provoked apparent reprisal attacks that had already killed more than 500 people in Pakistan before Friday’s blast.

Militants have struck all across the nuclear-armed country, and they appear increasingly willing to hit groups beyond security forces. No group claimed responsibility for Friday’s blast, but that is not uncommon when many civilians are killed.Across Pakistan’s northwest, where the police force is thin, underpaid and under-equipped, various tribes have taken security in their own hands over the past two years by setting up citizen militias to fend off the Taliban.

The government has encouraged such “lashkars,” and in some areas they have proven key to reducing militant activity.Still, tribal leaders who face off with the militants do so at high personal risk. Several suicide attacks have targeted meetings of anti-Taliban elders, and militants also often go after individuals. One reason militancy has spread in Pakistan’s semiautonomous tribal belt is because insurgents have slain dozens of tribal elders and filled a power vacuum.

Shah Hasan Khel village “has been a hub of militants. Locals set up a militia and expelled the militants from this area. This attack seems to be reaction to their expulsion,” local police Chief Ayub Khan told reporters.Mohammed Qayyum, 22, tried to avoid crying Saturday as he recounted how his younger brother died when the explosion shook the neighborhood. His family’s house was among the more than three dozen nearby mud-brick homes that toppled.”After the blast, I heard cries, I saw dust, and I saw injured and dead bodies,” said Qayyum, who escaped injury. “See this rubble, see these destroyed homes? Everybody was happy before the explosion, but today we are mourning.”

Like many others in the village that had prided itself on standing up to the militants, Qayyum refused to comment when asked who he thought was behind the bombing.

In Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton condemned the attack.”The United States will continue to stand with the people of Pakistan in their efforts to chart their own future free from fear and intimidation and will support their efforts to combat violent extremism and bolster democracy,” she said in a statement.Authorities said about 300 people were on the field at the time of Friday’s blast and security had been provided for the games and the tribal elders’ meeting. Police official Tajammal Shah said Saturday that 88 people died and 50 were wounded. Eight children, six paramilitary troops and two police were among the dead, he said.

Omar Gull, 35, a wounded paramilitary soldier, said the attacker drove recklessly into the crowd and people were trying to figure out what was happening when the explosives detonated. “It was then chaos,” he said.The attack was one of the deadliest in years, and the second deadliest since the latest wave of bloodshed began in October. A car bomb killed 112 people at a crowded market in Peshawar on Oct. 28.Regional Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain reiterated the government’s resolve to target militants wherever they may be, saying, “We need to be more on the offensive to fight them.”(AP)

Pakistan ISLAMABAD suicide bombing death toll rises to 8

Shiite Muslim

ISLAMABAD The death toll from a suicide bombing at a Shiite Muslim gathering in the capital of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir increased to eight Monday, police said, as minority Shiites marked the key holy day of Ashura.Another 80 people were wounded in Sunday night’s bombing in Muzaffarabad – a rare sectarian attack in an area police say has little history of militant violence. The dead included three police, said police official Yasin Baig, adding that another 10 police were among the wounded.The suicide bomber set off explosives he was carrying as police searched him outside a ceremony commemorating the seventh century death of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson during the Islamic holy month of Muharram.Security has been tightened across Pakistan during Muharram, and particularly for Monday’s Ashura, the 10th day of Muharram, a month of mourning that is often marred by bombings and fighting between Pakistan’s Sunni Muslim majority and its Shiite minority.

In the northwestern city of Peshawar, which has been repeatedly hit by suicide bombings in the past months, thousands of police were guarding processions, and troops were on standby, local police chief Liaqat Ali Khan said.

“Our security level is red alert,” Khan said, adding that the recent wave of attacks required police to be extra vigilant.

More than 500 people have been killed in attacks across Pakistan since October. Insurgents are suspected of avenging a U.S.-supported Pakistani army offensive against the Taliban in a northwest tribal region along the Afghan border.Maj. Aurangzeb Khan said paramilitary forces were deployed and were carrying out helicopter patrols in the southern port city of Karachi, where a blast that authorities attributed to a buildup of gas in a sewage pipe wounded about 30 people on Sunday.

“Our men will remain with all the processions till their culmination,” Khan said.To the east in Lahore, all entry and exit points to processions were blocked to traffic and anyone joining a procession had to pass through scanners, said police official Chaudhry Shafiq.

“There is always a threat, especially in the ongoing terror attacks,” Shafiq said.After Sunday night’s bombing in Kashmir’s Muzaffarabad, Baig, the police official there, said Shiite mourners at the commemoration ceremony took to the streets to protest the bombing, with some firing shots in the air. Baig said authorities restored order within about an hour.

He said it was the first time a suicide bomber attacked a Shiite gathering in the region.Muslim militants have fought for decades to free Kashmir, which is split between India and Pakistan and claimed by both, from New Delhi’s rule. But while Muzaffarabad has served as a base for anti-India insurgents to train and launch attacks, the capital – and most of the Pakistani side – has largely been spared any violence, with militants focusing on the Indian-controlled portion.

The bombing highlights the growing extremism of militants in Pakistani Kashmir. Many of the region’s armed groups were started with support from Islamabad. But some of them have turned against their former patrons and joined forces with the Taliban because the government has reduced its support under U.S. pressure.

The partnership is a dangerous development for Pakistan as it could enable the Taliban to carry out attacks more easily outside its sanctuary in the country’s tribal areas in the northwest. More than 500 people have been killed in retaliatory attacks since the military launched a major anti-Taliban offensive in mid-October in the militant stronghold of South Waziristan near the Afghan border.