Taliban deputy claims responsibility for Pakistan bomb attack
- Rescue workers and police help the injured from buildings that collapsed after the 100kg bomb was detonated in the middle of Lahore. Photograph: K M Chaudry/AP
- A senior leader of the Taliban in Pakistan today claimed responsibility for the bomb attack in Lahore that killed at least 24 people and wounded hundreds more, saying it was revenge for the army offensive against militants in Swat valley.
- Hakimullah Mehsud, a deputy to the Pakistani Taliban chief, Baitullah Mehsud, told the Associated Press that the attack on the offices of the police chief and Pakistan's main spy agency, the ISI, was connected to the military operation.
- "It was in response to the Swat operation where innocent people have been killed," Mehsud said. The little-known group Taliban Movement in Punjab has also claimed responsibility for the attack
- Pakistan, Taliban and Global Security – Part I
- Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal makes its success against Taliban insurgents critical for world security
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| Nuclear aim: Pakistan's plutonium production reactor at Khushab, above. The Taliban in Pakistan can still wreak havoc without a fully assembled bomb | |
WASHINGTON: As Afghan president Hamid Karzai and Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari meet with President Barack Obama on quelling the threat from the Taliban and Al Qaeda, a sword of Damocles hangs over their summit: the danger that the Islamic extremist groups may gain control of some or all of Pakistan’s nuclear assets. The success or failure of the anti-Taliban operation currently underway in Pakistan could be the first indicator of the seriousness of the danger ahead.
Securing these assets is not simply a matter of locking away Pakistan’s 80 or so nuclear weapons; a much wider array of nuclear resources are potentially at risk. Moreover, extremists have multiple means for causing mayhem with these assets and can exploit multiple avenues to try to gain access to them.
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