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 The deadliest attack in Islamabad in several years followed weeks
of preliminary talks with the main Islamist militant grouping
battling the state, the Pakistani Taliban, who last week extended a
ceasefire until April 10.
The Pakistani Taliban denied responsibility for the early morning
bomb that went off as traders assembled for fruit auctions.
Severed body parts and bloodstained clothes were scattered
throughout stalls at the market between Islamabad and its twin city
of Rawalpindi. Police said the bomb had been hidden in a box of
guava fruit.
"Body parts went everywhere and even hit other people on the head,"
said Shaheen, a market worker who only gave one name.
Bloody sandals lay amid boxes of straw and damaged fruit in the mud.
Police waved metal detectors over boxes while dazed vendors sat in
the wreckage.
Javed Akram Qazi, vice chancellor of the Pakistan Institute of
Medical Sciences, said 18 bodies had been brought in to his
hospital. Earlier, he had said 23 people were killed but later said
authorities had been confused in their reporting.
Another hospital had received two bodies, and about 70 people were
injured, said Minister of Health Saira Afzal Tarar.
Rawalpindi is home to the headquarters of the military but the blast
occurred far from any army buildings.
The Pakistan Taliban condemned the attack and blamed it on "hidden
hands".
"The deaths of innocent people in attacks on public places are
saddening," the group's spokesman, Shahidullah Shahid, said in a
statement.
"Such attacks are wrong and against Islamic law."
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The Taliban regularly bomb schools, marketplaces and public
transport. Authorities say they have killed tens of thousands of
Pakistanis.
In talks with representatives of the government, the Taliban have
demanded the release of hundreds of prisoners and the withdrawal of
the army from some semi-autonomous ethnic Pashtun regions where
militants shelter along the border with Afghanistan.
The Taliban are fighting to overthrow Pakistan's democratically
elected government and impose a strict form of Islamic law.
Pakistan is home to dozens of militant groups. Many are officially
banned but nevertheless tolerated by the government in a country
that has for decades seem Islamist groups as "assets" for use in the
event of war with old rival India, and to pursue objectives in
Afghanistan.
Some Islamists, such as the Pakistani Taliban, turned on the state
after Pakistan was pressured into siding with the United States in
its "war on terror" following the September 11, 2001, attacks on
U.S. cities.
(Writing by Katharine Houreld; editing by Ron Popeski and Robert
Birsel)
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