Pakistani police said they have arrested a suspect who was to have been
the third bomber in Thursday's suicide attacks that killed at least 64
people near Islamabad.
Police Friday said they also seized an
explosives-packed suicide jacket at a mosque near the country's main
weapons complex that was attacked in the town of Wah.
Taliban
spokesman Maulvi Omar said the extremist group carried out the bombings
in retaliation for military air strikes in the tribal region of
Bajaur. He warned of more attacks unless the military stops its
operations.
Pakistan's Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik
ignored the Taliban's warning and vowed to continue the offensive to
establish government control in Bajaur.
Security forces in
Pakistan have been engaged in fighting with Taliban and al-Qaida-linked
militants in tribal regions along the Afghan border for weeks. More
than 500 militants and 22 soldiers have been killed in the offensive,
with thousands more people displaced by the violence.
The Pakistani military continued its offensive in Bajaur Friday, with at least four militants killed along the Afghan border.
Elsewhere
in the country's northwest, security officials say troops killed at
least 16 militants in a clash near the town of Hangu in North West
Frontier Province.
Military officials say security forces
stopped a suspicious vehicle at a checkpoint. One person got out of
the vehicle and started approaching troops, who then opened fire, triggering explosives he was carrying. Troops exchanged fire with
other suspects in the vehicle, causing it to explode. The military
says there is evidence that two suicide bombers were foreigners.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP and AP.
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