22 die in attacks in first major security test of new Pakistan leader Sharif
MILITANTS in a volatile region of western Pakistan bombed a bus carrying women students on Saturday and then seized part of the hospital where survivors were taken, in the first major security test for the new prime minister, Nawaz Sharif.
At least 22 people were killed in a day of violence that started with an apparent separatist attack that destroyed a summer retreat once used by the nation’s founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, in the hills of Baluchistan province.
A policeman lost his life in the attack on a popular symbol of Pakistan’s history, which was gutted by fire after several small bombs were detonated.
The first attack was quickly followed by a bus bomb on a university campus in Baluchistan’s capital Quetta that killed at least 14 women students.
The injured were taken to the city’s Bolan Medical Complex, where an ambush by a suicide bomber and an ensuing firefight with security forces killed at least eight more people.
The government said the Quetta attacks were not connected with the earlier blasts at the hill retreat.
The violence brought an abrupt end to a period of relative calm after Pakistan’s first ever transition between elected civilian governments, which brought Sharif to office for the third time, and highlighted the deep fissures in the nation he must govern.
As well as the fragile security situation, Sharif has inherited a severe energy crisis and a weak economy.
He must also manage a complex relationship with the United States, including nationwide anger at US drone attacks.
At least 36 were injured in Saturday’s violence. Four militants including two suicide bombers were among the dead at the hospital, where security forces moved from room to room freeing trapped patients and doctors, the government said.
Four nurses were also reported dead.
By nightfall, interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said the hospital siege was over, with one suspect captured. Four members of the security forces were confirmed dead.
The new chief minister in Baluchistan, an ally of Sharif’s, last week vowed to work towards talks to end a long-running war with separatist guerrillas in resourceBaluchistan.
In addition to the separatist movement, Quetta is home to much sectarian violence, much of it targeting the Hazara ethnic minority, who are Shi’ite Muslims in a largely Sunni country.
It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the bus and hospital attacks, or whether they were aimed at the Hazaras.
City police chief Mir Zubair Mehmood said the students on the bus were from various ethnic groups, including Hazaras, targets of a series of bombings this year.
Jinnah stayed in the woodland Quaid Azam Residency as he tried to recover from a lung disease in 1948, a year after his successful campaign to separate Pakistan from India. He died in Karachi soon after. The building is a national heritage site.
Several men surrounded the house in the early hours of the morning before detonating a number of bombs.
A policeman was killed and the ensuing blaze tore through the two-storey wooden-clad building, destroying historical relics. — Reuters