Bomb kills 15 in Pakistan


Courthouse attack adds to recent toll
By Reuters | February 18, 2007

QUETTA, Pakistan -- A suicide bomber in Pakistan killed 15 people, including
a judge, in a courtroom in the city of Quetta yesterday, the latest in a
series of suicide blasts that have sent shudders through the country.

Intelligence officials have attributed other attacks to sectarian Sunni
militants linked to Al Qaeda and groups operating from tribal areas,
regarded as hotbeds of support for the Taliban's efforts to regain control
of Afghanistan.

Police made a string of arrests last week, including two suicide bomb teams
in southern Pakistan.

The suicide attacks started after an army air strike on a militant base in
South Waziristan tribal region in the middle of last month.

Including the death toll from Quetta, nearly 45 people have been killed in
bomb attacks since then, as militants have sought to destabilize President
Pervez Musharraf's government and weaken his resolve to confront the
Taliban, Al Qaeda, and their allies.

Police arrested two suicide bomb teams in southern Sindh province on Friday,
and identified them as factions of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a Sunni Muslim
sectarian militant group that has established ties with Al Qaeda.

One team of three militants was captured after a gunfight in the southern
city of Karachi, and another team of three was caught boarding a train at
Sukkur, 320 miles northeast of the port city.

Police said the militants arrested in Karachi and Sukkur had been planning
attacks on Pakistan's Muslim Shi'ite minority at the end of the holy month
of Muharram, which falls in the first week of March.



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