Suicide bomber kills 35 in Pakistan

November 8th, 2006

Peshawar, Pakistan - A suicide bomber detonated a bomb at a Pakistan army training base today, killing at least 35 soldiers and wounding several others who were doing their morning exercises.

A suicide bomber detonated a bomb at a Pakistan army training base today, killing at least 35 soldiers and wounding several others who were doing their morning exercises.

"A man wrapped in cloak came running into the training area and exploded himself where recruits had gathered for training," a statement said of the early morning attack in Dargai town. It said at least 35 soldiers died.

Dargai is the army's main training center, and is located about 60 miles north of Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier Province.

No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.

Local residents said the dead and injured soldiers were doing morning exercises at a drill area when the attack happened.

"We heard a deafening sound of a blast in the morning. Now people say a bomb had exploded at the army training camp," said Akbar Khan, a local resident.

Pakistan is a key ally of the United States and it has deployed about 80,000 troops in the country's tribal area in an effort to flush out remnants of the Taliban and al Qaida.

Dargai is a stronghold of an outlawed Islamic group, Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat Mohammadi, or Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Law, which has been fighting government forces in Pakistan's tribal regions bordering Afghanistan.

Some leaders of the group had publicly vowed to carry out suicide attacks against the army after the October 30 air strike on an Islamic school in another tribal region that killed 80 people.

Since then, tribesmen in Bajur and elsewhere have been holding protest rallies to condemn the attack, and they claim that those killed by the army were students and teachers.

The government insists that the school was a training base for terrorists affiliated with Afghanistan's Taliban guerrilla movement.