Pakistan: At Least 43 Killed in Suicide Bombing on Saturday (Khan)

Ismail Khan reports for The New York Times:

A suicide bomber, believed to be a woman, attacked a checkpoint in the northwestern tribal area on Saturday where people displaced by fighting were lining up for food.

At least 43 people were killed and about 100 wounded, officials in the Bajaur tribal region said.

One official said that a woman wearing a burqa was stopped at a security post in Khar, the main town in Bajaur. “She threw a hand grenade, and before the security force could respond, she detonated herself,” said the official, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.

Most of the victims had recently returned to the region, which the military said had been cleared of insurgents after repeated military operations there over the past two years.

The checkpoint was about 500 yards from a World Food Program distribution center that was feeding people displaced by the military operations. Most of them were members of the Salarzai tribe, which is opposed to the Taliban and has taken up arms against them, and suggests that the bombing was an act of retribution by the Taliban.

“I had stayed at the regional headquarters overnight to be able to collect my food ration,” said Taj Mohammad, 35, who was wounded in the blast.

He said that he saw a woman in a burqa, then heard her scream, followed by two explosions. “I was hit in the leg and dragged myself for some time before falling unconscious,” he said later at the Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar, where he was being treated.

Other witnesses at the hospital agreed that the shriek was that of a woman and not, as is often the case, of a man disguised in a burqa, a long, shapeless cloak that can easily conceal an explosives vest. A security official also said he thought the bomber was a woman but said only DNA testing could confirm it.

If so, she would be Pakistan’s second female suicide bomber. In December 2007, a woman blew herself up at a checkpoint in the heavily guarded military barracks in Peshawar, taking only her life.

Bajaur, a district on the northern edge of the tribal region on the Afghan border, has long been considered a haven for Al Qaeda and the Taliban, which uses the region as a base to strike American and Afghan targets across the border.

Under pressure from the Americans, the Pakistani military has carried out several operations to drive insurgents out of the area starting in late 2008. Twice, in 2009 and again this year, the military has declared the region cleared, but each time the Taliban has returned.

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