The News (October 10) reports: “At least eight people were injured when a suicide bomber rammed his explosive-laden vehicle into the central office of anti-terrorist squad (ATS) located in the premises of police headquarters here at 12.50 pm Thursday”. The report further says: “a few days back a threat was received by the authorities of bombing the police headquarters..”

Another report in the same paper states that the prime minister and his advisor on interior, Rehman Malik, have criticised the attacks. Meanwhile, The Nation (October 10) quotes Rehman Malik as saying that “terrorists yearn to threaten government by conducting more suicide bombings in Islamabad so that the government could be refrained from FATA operation nevertheless the operation against suspected militants in FATA would last until the government’s writ gets established there”.

According to a report compiled by a law enforcement agency in Pakistan, there have been 116 suicide bombings since 2002. Dawn (October 9) reports: “Suicide bombers have struck 116 times in Pakistan since the first incident of its kind in March 2002 at an Islamabad church, disclosed data collected by a law-enforcement agency. It was March 16, 2002, when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a church in Islamabad, killing five people and injuring 40 others, including Sri Lankan high commissioner to Pakistan .. Since then suicide bombings have continued unabated”.

Why Pakistan?

Ikram Sehgal (October 9) in an opinion piece written for The News, states: “Terror is stalking the land. Nothing can be more symbolic of this than the Marriott bombing of Sept 20. In the first flush some have compared it to 9/11, maybe not on the scale but certainly in relevance, given that it took place on a special day for Pakistan. Within Islamabad’s high security zone, security measures were at their highest level.”

... contd.