A suicide bomber has attacked a police emergency call center in the
capital of Islamabad, killing two police officers and wounding others.
Pakistani police say the attacker scaled the rear wall of the Rescue 15
compound and ran into the courtyard late Saturday when security
officers opened fire and the bomb exploded.
The bombing is the latest in a string of attacks on Pakistani cities
that officials say are retaliation for the military's campaign against
the Taliban in the country's northwest. In one attack, a bomb blast at
a Rescue 15 building in the eastern city of Lahore killed 30 people and
wounded more than 200 others.
Earlier Saturday, two high-ranking prisoners were killed in a bomb and
gunfire attack on a military convoy that was transporting detainees.
Pakistani officials identified the prisoners as Muhammad Alam and Ameer
Izzat. The two men were arrested Thursday and were senior members of
the militant group Tehrik-e-Nifaz-i-Shariat-e-Muhammadi. (Alam was a deputy while Izzat was the group's spokesman.)
Major-General Athar Abbas says the men were being taken from Malakand
to the city of Peshawar for interrogation. He said it was possible they
were the target of the attack.
The group's leader, Maulana Sufi Muhammad, helped negotiate the failed
peace deal in the Swat Valley that required militants to disarm in
exchange for the establishment of strict Islamic (Sharia) law there.
Pakistani officials say one soldier was killed and five others wounded in Saturday's attack on the military convoy.
A political scientist at Lahore University (Rasul Bahksh Rais) told a Pakistani television network (Express 24/7) the
killings may have been deliberate to prevent Alam and Izzat from giving
the military information about militant leaders' whereabouts.
The Pakistani military has been battling Taliban fighters in the Swat
Valley area for more than a month. Pakistan says more than 1,300
militants and more than 100 soldiers have been killed during the
offensive. A Pakistani military spokesman says government forces have
killed 17 militants in the past 24 hours.
