Taliban claim responsibility for slaying cleric

Saturday, June 13, 2009 at 7:23 AM Posted by Beijing News


ISLAMABAD – The Taliban claimed responsibility Saturday for recent suicide attacks in Pakistan, including the assassination of a leading moderate cleric and the bombing of a Peshawar hotel frequented by foreign aid workers.

President Asif Ali Zardari addressed the nation and vowed to continue fighting the Taliban "until the end," calling it a battle for Pakistan's survival.

Taliban militants have unleashed a battery of suicide attacks since Pakistan launched a major offensive in the volatile Swat Valley in the country's northwest over a month ago. Friday's bombing of the cleric, Sarfraz Naeemi, at his seminary in the eastern city of Lahore triggered a wave of public anger and revulsion.

Thousands of people gathered late Saturday for his funeral in the country's cultural capital, surging forward to try to touch his casket as pall bearers carried it to a crypt where it was sealed and covered with rose petals. The protesters demanded death for each and every Taliban member and a public hanging for their leader, Baitullah Mehsud.

In Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, a general strike was held to mourn Naeemi. Many streets were deserted and shops shuttered. About 200 activists of Jamat Ahle Sunnat, a moderate Muslim sect, staged a mock funeral procession of Taliban, burning one in effigy to show their anger over the deadly bombing. The group chanted "Down with the Taliban; Taliban, the enemy of Islam; death for the killers of Sarfraz Naeemi."

Police said the bombing was a targeted assassination, although four others also died and three were wounded. The cleric had recently condemned suicide attacks as un-Islamic and denounced the Taliban as murderers and "a stigma on Islam." He also threw his support behind the military operation in Swat.

The seminary bombing was echoed within minutes at a mosque used by troops in the northwestern city of Nowshera, killing at least four and wounding 100. The attacks took the count of suicide bombings to five in eight days, including a huge blast at the luxury Pearl Continental Hotel in nearby Peshawar that killed 11 people, including U.N. workers.

Taliban commander Saeed Hafiz claimed responsibility for the blasts at the seminary, hotel and in Nowshera on behalf of Tehrik-i-Taliban, the group headed by Mehsud, local media reported.

Naeemi's son, Raghib, filed a criminal complaint Saturday accusing Mehsud of murder, conspiracy and terrorism, saying his father had been receiving threats for his outspoken views.

"Baitullah Mehsud is responsible for planning and motivating the attack that killed my father," police official Sohail Sukhera quoted the complaint as saying.

In his address early Saturday, Zardari said Pakistan was, "fighting a war with those who want to impose their agenda on this nation with force and power."

"These people murdered thousands of innocent people. By spreading terror in Pakistan and by scaring people, they want to take over the institutions of Pakistan. They do everything in the name of Islam, but they do not have anything to do with Islam. They are cruel. They are terrorists."

In Washington, U.S. defense officials said Friday that Pakistan was planning a new assault into the lawless tribal district of South Waziristan, where senior al-Qaida and Taliban leaders are believed to have strongholds.

Pakistan has announced no such offensive but has shelled and dropped bombs on suspected militant strongholds in the region in recent days, saying it is responding to militant attacks.

Expectations are high that a new offensive will be launched sooner or later, as the government faces pressure to back its claims that it will root out extremists nationwide. The U.S. officials said the initial phases of the offensive had already begun, but offered no timeframe. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the operation has not been announced.

On Saturday, Pakistani jet fighters dropped bombs on suspected Taliban hideouts in three villages in South Waziristan, killing at least 15 insurgents and wounding many others, two local intelligence officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

The Swat campaign has received generally broad support from a Pakistani public that has started to openly denounce the militants after years of ambivalence.

Associated Press writers Riaz Khan in Peshawar and Asif Shahzad in Islamabad, and Pauline Jelinek and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed to this report.





Schalit

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