21 killed in attack on Pakistani army convoy

Islamic militants bombed an army convoy in northwestern Pakistan, killing at least 21 people Thursday, two days after the government deployed thousands of troops in the area to try to rein in a pro-Taliban cleric.

The attack, representing a new challenge to President Pervez Musharraf’s government, came less than a week after nearly 140 people were killed in an attack on a crowd gathered to welcome former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto on her return to Pakistan. No group has claimed responsibility, but investigators believe militants linked to the Taliban or Al Qaeda carried out the twin bombings.

The blast Thursday in the picturesque Swat valley hit a military truck that was loaded with ammunition, setting off huge secondary explosions. Authorities believed the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber in an explosives-laden vehicle, but they had not ruled out the possibility of a roadside bomb.

Nearly all of those killed were paramilitary troops, but at least four civilian bystanders were among the dead, military officials said. Dozens of people were injured.

The convoy was traveling through a high-security zone in Mingora, the main town in the Swat district, on its way to the headquarters of the paramilitary Frontier Constabulary. Witnesses said injured soldiers, uniforms aflame, leaped from the truck, and that the force of the blast set fire to more than a dozen shops and a gasoline station.

This week, the government deployed about 3,000 army and paramilitary troops to Swat, where forces loyal to radical cleric Maulana Fazlullah have been seeking to impose a Taliban-style code of law.

The presence of militants in Swat, in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province, is a relatively recent development, a spillover from the lawless tribal areas bordering Afghanistan where the Taliban and Al Qaeda, together with local militants, have ensconced themselves.

Fazlullah, who reportedly went into hiding when the government troops moved in, has been using a pirate radio station to rally his followers, calling on them to wage holy war against Musharraf’s government. Fazlullah heads a group, banned by the government in 2002, that advocates the imposition of a strict version of Sharia, or Islamic law.

Musharraf condemned the bombing as a “dastardly terrorist attack,” Pakistan’s state-run news agency reported.

Violence in the tribal areas and the North-West Frontier Province has increased since July, when government forces stormed Islamabad’s Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, held then by Islamists. More than 100 people died in the siege in the capital, and militant groups vowed to exact revenge.

Residents of the scenic mountain valley of Swat, whose lakes and forests were once a tourist destination, report being terrorized over the last several months by Fazlullah’s followers. The militants have forbidden education for girls, burned video stores and menaced barbers who trim men’s beards.

Government troops last ventured into Swat in significant numbers in July and received a similar reception.

Attackers killed at least 14 people, mostly military personnel, in a carefully staged raid on an army convoy that involved at least two suicide attackers and a roadside bomb.

A spokesman for Fazlullah, who uses the name Sirajuddin, told the Associated Press that the cleric’s forces intended to purge the area of “criminals” and warned that the presence of more troops would bring more attacks.

--

laura.king@latimes.com

Special correspondent Ali reported from Peshawar and Times staff writer King from Karachi, Pakistan.