Pakistan Sports Event Homicide Bombing Kills at least 75…

Death toll rises in Pakistan game blast

Dozens are wounded when an explosives-laden truck is detonated at an outdoor volleyball game. Officials say the attack targeted members of an anti-Taliban ‘peace committee.’

Reporting from New Delhi and Peshawar, Pakistan – At least 75 civilians were killed and dozens were wounded Friday when a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden vehicle at an outdoor volleyball game in northwestern Pakistan, police said. The attack apparently was aimed at members of an anti-Taliban “peace committee” that has been challenging the influence of insurgents, officials and town elders said.

The bombing took place as a crowd of more than 200 people watched a match between local teams about 20 miles south of the town of Lakki Marwat in North-West Frontier Province. The site is close to South Waziristan, where Pakistani troops have been battling Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters in recent months at the urging of U.S. leaders.

The bomber drove a double-cab pickup truck packed with 550 pounds of high-intensity explosives onto the field, which is in a densely populated neighborhood, police said. Witnesses said the ground was littered with flesh after the blast and that several bodies were damaged beyond recognition.

The force of the bomb rocked the area, destroying several nearby houses. Survivors struggled to free badly wounded victims from the rubble. Several critically hurt people were taken by car and wagon to other hospitals in Lakki Marwat district after the local government-run hospital became overwhelmed.

“Locals set up a militia and expelled the militants from this area,” Police Chief Ayub Khan told reporters. “This attack seems to be reaction to their expulsion.”

Mushtaq Marwat, an elder in Lakki Marwat, said members of the peace committee, many of whom were watching the volleyball match, had earlier received threats from militant groups operating in the volatile North Waziristan tribal region.

Analysts said the attack was part of a retaliatory campaign the Taliban has waged against the army and public since the government launched an offensive against insurgents in South Waziristan in October. It underscores the challenges ahead this year in the battle to stem insurgency along both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border.

One of the militants’ objectives is to sow terror among the general population in hopes of putting more political pressure on President Asif Ali Zardari’s government to back down.

“The Taliban are increasingly frustrated, as you saw with this sports attack,” said Ishtiaq Ahmad, professor of international relations with Islamabad’s Quaid-i-Azam University. “They spare no opportunity to engage in pure and simple terrorism against unarmed civilians. This has the largest psychological impact.”

A second objective, analysts said, is to increase misunderstanding and distrust between Washington and Islamabad in hopes of preventing coordinated attacks from both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border in the spring. In a few months, the snows will have melted and many of the 30,000 additional U.S. troops in Afghanistan promised by President Obama will be in place.

On other fronts, a suspected U.S. missile strike killed at least two alleged militants in a car in North Waziristan on Friday. It was the second such attack in less than 12 hours.

In 2009, the U.S. carried out at least 50 missile attacks using unmanned drone aircraft in Pakistan’s lawless Federally Administered Tribal Areas and the adjacent Bannu district. Dozens of people were killed, including Al Qaeda and Taliban commanders.

U.S. officials rarely discuss the missile strikes, which the Pakistani public views as a threat to national sovereignty and a danger to civilians. Islamabad publicly condemns the attacks, although it is widely believed that it assists with intelligence and logistical support in secret.

With time, the drone attacks have become more effective and involved fewer civilian casualties, although militants have begun altering their movements in response.

Locals said two people were killed and four were wounded in Friday’s drone attack after two missiles hit a car parked outside a residential compound. The victims’ identities could not immediately be learned.

A drone attack late Thursday reportedly hit the house of a local tribesman in Mirali Tehsil, in North Waziristan, killing seven people. Officials and family members confirmed that pro-Taliban commander Haji Muhammad Umar, 48, was among the casualties.