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A TALIBAN SUICIDE bomber has killed at least 13 people in a market next to Pakistan’s military headquarters, a day after one of the deadliest attacks on security forces in recent years.
A further 18 people were wounded in the blast which tore through RA bazaar in Rawalpindi, Islamabad’s twin city, only 15 metres from the army’s General Headquarters early this morning.
It came a day after the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) killed 26 soldiers and wounded at least 25 others in a suicide bombing in the northwestern town of Bannu.
Upturn in violence
Two high-profile attacks in 24 hours mark a sharp upturn in violence from the TTP after a period of relative quiet following the death of their leader Hakimullah Mehsud in a US drone strike in November.
Haroon Joya, a senior police official at the scene of Monday’s blast, told reporters six soldiers and seven civilians had been killed.
“It was a suicide attack, we are collecting evidence from the spot. We have collected some body parts suspected to be of the suicide bomber,” he said.
Earlier, the top government official in Rawalpindi, Sajid Zafar Dall said 18 people were wounded in the blast.
“The attack occurred when children were going to school”, he said.
Our initial assessment is that the bomber was possibly on a bicycle and he then approached the target on foot.
The blast left the market place a mess of twisted shutters and rubble, with pieces of human flesh scattered on the ground, an AFP reporter said.
The TTP have been waging a bloody campaign against the Pakistani state since 2007, carrying out countless bomb and gun attacks, often on military targets.
The military headquarters came under attack in 2009, when militants laid siege to the complex for 24 hours. A total of 19 people died including eight militants.
Security officials examine the site of the suicide bombing. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)
TTP spokesman Shahidullah Shahid claimed this morning’s attack as payback for a deadly military raid on a radical mosque in Rawalpindi in 2007.
“It was carried by one of our suicide bombers to take revenge for the Red Mosque massacre,” he told AFP.
“We will continue our struggle against the secular system.”
Eyewitnesses described the power of the explosion.
“I was reading a newspaper after opening my shop and all of a sudden I heard a big blast,” Liaqat Ali, a grocery shop owner near the site told AFP.
Army troops secure a road leading to the site. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)
“The intensity of the blast threw me off my chair. I rushed outside and saw smoke and smoke everywhere. I saw injured laying and screaming on ground.”
Police and commandos cordoned off the area as ambulances took wounded to a nearby military hospital.
Analysts said the Taliban’s ability to carry out two such high-profile attacks in quick succession raised fresh questions about Pakistan’s strategy for dealing with the homegrown militant threat.
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The Koran absolutely forbids suicide. I wonder how they can square suicide bombings with their supposed faith.
They can square it no problem. Feyadeen or martyrdom is noble in the fight against the infidel with all it’s heavenly sex rewards. Suicide in itself isn’t the objective, murdering the enemies of islam is.
Many verses in the Koran justify this.
Out of interested Margaret, could you name the verses that say killing innocents is OK in Islam?
Thanks!
That is the problem with the Koran, it is contradictory. You have one passage promoting peace and another instructing you to slay the infidels wherever you find them. The problem of religious texts contradicting themselves is not unique to Islam but it is exacerbated in its case as one of the doctrines is that everything in the Koran is the literal word of God. Questioning it or removing the violent and outdated passages that are used to delude people into carrying out these heinous acts is forbidden. This is going to be a growing problem for the faith in modern society and one that will be difficult to resolve due to the way the faith is organised.
That’s a loaded question because you use the word “innocent”. A Muslim would say killing innocents is forbidden and it is, but enemies of islam are not innocent and they are whover the militants choose them to be. 4:74, 9:111, 2:207 just for starters but the Koran is riddled with passages urging the killing of unbelievers who by definition are not innocent.
Patrick,
Anybody can quote anything out of context to justify an action to themselves.
That does not mean the source of the quote can be blamed, the idiot who either misunderstood or purposefully misquoted the source is to blame.
Mike,
The cause of Islamic extremism is both the extremists themselves and the passage they are using to justify their actions. When a text claims that something is the literal command of your God then you absolutely can condemn the text for containing an instruction to commit violence. The people who use these passages to justify their actions are not misquoting them they are just deciding that the instruction to commit violence from the Koran supersedes the direction to be peaceful. The majority of Muslims do the opposite and are peaceful but you can certainly criticise and apportion some of blame to the Koran for containing these passages.
Their not real Muslims
The west says they are but their not
Just wanted to clear that whole Koran thing up
So in other words margaret you have no verses at all.
“A Muslim would say killing innocents is forbidden and it is” – exactly.
“and they are whover the militants choose them to be” – agreed, I’m pointing out that any Muslim who actually knows their religion would never do something like that, because Islam forbids it.
Fair enough Patrick, this is why the hadiths are also recorded and followed.
To clarify any ambiguous verses that may lead to misunderstanding.
As you and I both mentioned, extremists can and do find any excuse to commit evil acts of murder but the majoiry of Muslims believe for a fact that there will be no “heavenly sex rewards” as margaret puts it.
Islam doesn’t forbid the killing of the enemies of islam. Muslims are commanded to “kill the unbeluevers wherever you may find him”. These passages are used by hundreds of thousands of jihadists worldwide to justify the violence that is done in the name if islam everyday and also goes a long way towards justifying the silence that millions of Muslims world wide engage in.
They don’t condemn the killings except with the “islam forbids killing the innocent” just like you? Are you a Muslim?
The hadiths are not the Koran, Mick and can’t supersede the Koran which is the word of god. I think you know abrogation which means that later passages in the Koran supersede earlier ones. What Mohammed wrote later in life supersedes the verses that he wrote earlier. And the peaceful passages were written earlier. But I think you know all that .
From a real Muslim margaret: verse 9:5 explained
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4M3idTSl4U
If you want to get into specifics of abrogation and hadiths ask an Islamic scholar, they deal with those kind of “loaded questions” on a daily basis.
Even if I could answer them here in a nice little bit of text, you would just copy and paste another allegation from “answering-islam.com” or the likes.
Spend an hour talking to a Muslim who has spent even a small amount of time learning about Islam and there is no justification for killing anybody unless under attack yourself first,
But I think you know all that .
Mick, I know any uneducated fool can set himself up as a “scholar” or iman and spout all sorts of nonsense about how thick the rod is allowed to be in order to beat your wife. And all Muslims justify the violent passages and hateful verses in the Koran by saying you haVe to ask a real Muslim or speak Arabic all that that kind of obsfucation. You didn’t answer my question. Are you a Muslim?
Thanks for the link Mick, that’s cleared it up very well !
Maybe this will clear it up even more for you
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zseOtQscFMA
Reuters obtained copies of four statements issued on Sunday by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) prohibiting music being played and images of people being posted in public.
The sale of cigarettes and shisha water pipes are banned, women must wear the niqab, or full face veil, in public and men are obliged to attend Friday prayers at a mosque. Violations of the rules will be punished according to sharia, or Islamic law.
The directives, which cite Koranic verses and Islamic teaching, are the latest evidence of ISIL’s ambition to establish a Syrian state founded on radical Islamist principle.JP
But here is the problem Margaret. Martyrdom is ment to come from your death by the infidel not by your own hand. To put a suicide bomber in medieval terms. It would be like a warrior armed with a sword killing unarmed civilians and then stabbing himself. And the Koran is very clear on this. That be a martyr you must die in battle at the hand of the infidel and be defending Islam. As such suicide bombers are by killing themselves commiting a mortal sin thus denying them access to paradise for ever. (According to their belief system)
Likewise it also states that it is the duty of every Muslim to seek knowledge (get educated). It doesn’t say every male Muslim just every Muslim. Yet the Taliban as we have seen ban females from education and severely limit what males can learn. In complete contradiction of their own holy book.
Syria is turning out to be a great school for jihadis, perhaps there will be a lot more of these incidents around the world.
Nothing to do with Syria, the Taliban were carrying out terrorist attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan long before Islamists tried to take advantage of the uprising in Syria.
Like I wrote “Syria is turning out to be a great school for jihadis, perhaps there will be a lot more of these incidents around the world.”
On the earlier bombing the Journal quoted “Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan spokesman Shahidullah Shahid claimed responsibility. “It was part of our fight against a secular system,” he said.
So there, lets have none of this secular nonsense.
This place is going from bad to worse.
have your say