Officials: Suicide attack kills 2 in Pakistan

[July 28, 2009]  MIR ALI, Pakistan (AP) -- A suicide car bomber rammed his vehicle into a checkpoint in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal region Tuesday, causing an explosion that killed two police and wounded five other security officials, authorities said.

The attack comes as Pakistani troops engage in offensives against the Taliban in nearby areas and in the wake of a revelation by a top government official that security forces have recovered dozens of young boys training to be suicide attackers.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for Tuesday's attack, but the Taliban have frequently targeted police and other security forces in Pakistan's northwest regions bordering Afghanistan.

The bomber aimed for a checkpoint some 2 miles (3 kilometers) north of Miran Shah, the main town in North Waziristan, local government official Rehmat Ullah said.

Two intelligence officials confirmed the casualty figures and said the wounded include three paramilitary troops. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.

North Waziristan is proving to be a trouble spot for the army just as it is in the initial phases of an offensive against Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud in neighboring South Waziristan.

A militant leader in North Waziristan, Hafiz Gul Bahadur, recently pulled out of a peace deal with the government, and clashes have occurred since in that region.

The army insists it does not plan a full-scale offensive in North Waziristan, but it has carried out some strikes there.

Pakistan's military is still largely focused on a separate offensive in the nearby Swat Valley and its surrounding districts.

On Tuesday, the decapitated body of a Pakistani police constable was discovered in the Swat town of Sangota. The find was a sign that Taliban militants have not given up the fight for the northwestern valley, despite the nearly three-month-old army offensive.

Police officer Sajjad Qazi said the constable was kidnapped a week ago, apparently by militants.

Rebuilding the police is key to government efforts to regain control of Swat, especially now that hundreds of thousands of refugees are returning home.

Late Monday, North West Frontier Province Senior Minister Bashir Ahmad Bilour said security forces engaged in the offensives have rescued dozens of children -- ages 6 to 15 -- who the Taliban were allegedly training as suicide bombers.

"They are prepared mentally. They say that Islam is everything for them. They say they are doing it for Islam. They say they have to carry suicide attacks for the sake of Islam," Bilour told private Geo TV. "They are many. I can not give you a number, honestly I do not have the number with me, but they are in dozens."

Bilour said the government will do its best to help the youth.

"Around 15 of them are already in the process of rehabilitation in an army school in Mardan," he said, referring to a northwestern town. "They are brainwashed to such an extreme that they are ready to kill their parents who they call infidels."

On Sunday, authorities in Swat's main town of Mingora presented several teenagers alleged to have been forcibly recruited by the Taliban. Seven boys, their lower faces covered to prevent them being recognized, were shown to reporters.

It was unclear exactly whether the Taliban wanted all or any of the boys to be suicide attackers.

One, a 16-year-old Shaukat Ali, said the militants abducted him while he was playing cricket and told him they wanted him to be "a warrior" and offered to pay his family for his services.

[Associated Press; By RASOOL DAWAR]

Associated Press Writer Asif Shahzad contributed to this report from Islamabad.

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