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Bomb targets Danish Embassy, 6 killed
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-06-03 07:04 Pakistan's border regions are considered havens for al-Qaida and Taliban-linked militants believed behind attacks on US forces in neighboring Afghanistan and a series of blasts in Pakistan in the past year.
Pakistan's government, in office for just two months, has been pursuing peace deals with the militants, a shift away from the US-backed military tactics employed by President Pervez Musharraf. The US has expressed concern the deals will give militant groups time to regroup and plan more attacks, and Monday's blast could lead the West to push Pakistan to rely more on military operations against extremists. Pakistani officials condemned the attack, but indicated they would keep up militant contacts. The government has insisted it is not talking to "terrorists" but rather militants willing to lay down their weapons. "There is no question of any impact of this incident on the peace process, but of course it badly harmed our image in the world," said Rehman Malik, the Interior Ministry chief. NATO says the deals have led to a spike in violence on Afghanistan's side of the border. "If there are insurgencies in places that are not in Afghanistan but are very close by, and security forces are not taking them on, I don't think that bodes well for the whole region," Gen. Dan McNeill, outgoing commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, said Monday. Denmark faced threats at its embassies following the reprinting in February by about a dozen newspapers of a cartoon that depicted Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban. That and other images in a Danish paper sparked riots in the Muslim world in 2006. Ben Venzke, CEO of IntelCenter, a US group that monitors al-Qaida messages, said the bombing was likely the work of the terror group or one of its affiliates. He said al-Qaida called for attacks against Danish diplomatic facilities and personnel in a video last August, and repeated its threat in April. "I urge and incite every Muslim who can harm Denmark to do so in support of the Prophet, God's peace and prayers be upon him, and in defense of his honorable stature," IntelCenter quoted al-Zawahri as saying in an April 21 video. Monday's bombing follows al-Qaida attacks against the US Embassy in Yemen in March and another on the Israeli Embassy in Mauritania in February, the group said. Mahmood Shah, a former security chief for the tribal regions, said al-Qaida attacks tend to be more lethal than Monday's blast. Radical local clerics could have been behind it, although if it was a suicide bombing, it likely originated from the unruly border regions where al-Qaida and Taliban find sanctuary. Even if the attack isn't linked to the tribal regions, the US and the West "will use this ... to say look, your policy (on peace deals) is not working," analyst Talat Masood said. The Danish Embassy is located on a leafy street lined with plush villas housing diplomatic missions and residences, offices and private homes. Concrete barriers lined at least one end, but access was not closely controlled, according to an Islamabad resident who traveled the road the previous day. Moeller said Denmark had increased security at several embassies, including Islamabad, in the past two years. In April, Denmark briefly evacuated staff from its embassies in Algeria and Afghanistan because of terror threats linked to the drawings. |
