Peshawar, October 17: A woman bomber blew herself up at a police compound in the Pakistani city of Peshawar on Friday, October 16, killing at least 11 people, in the first such assault in the south Asian Muslim country.
“According to eyewitnesses, a burqa-clad woman alighted from a motorbike, in front of the entrance of the investigation center,” Peshawar police chief Karim Khan.
“As one of the police guards deputed there tried to stop her, she removed her veil, and blew herself up.
“As soon as the woman blew herself up, a car loaded with explosive material rammed into the building compounding the damage.”
The attack is the first to be carried out by a woman in the south Asian Muslim country.
“I saw her (woman bomber) alighting from the motorbike,” eyewitness Shahid Ali Khan told.
“As she walked towards the main gate of the CIA (Central Investigation Agency) center, I heard a policeman shouting at her. But she didn’t stop, and kept walking.
“A policeman fired in the air to warn her, but she threw her veil off, and blew herself up.
“I saw her lower part of the body tossing in the air, and fell several feet away from the scene,” he said.
The twin attack killed 11 people, including a woman, a child and three policemen.
Television footage showed human limbs flung across the street, splattering blood on the ground and scattering shoes.
The images also showed the blood-soaked identity card of the second-grade school boy lay on the ground as rescuers pulled bodies and the wounded from the rubble.
The attack left the main gate of the two-storey police building destroyed.
A nearby mosque was also damaged and about a dozen people were wounded.
Friday’s attack is the fifth in a week in Pakistan, a close ally of the US in the so-called war on terror.
At least 40 people were killed Thursday in a string of attacks on security buildings in Lahore.
“Indiscriminate killings of civilians, especially children in US drone attacks, have simplified the work for militants,” Hussein told.
Analysts believe that Friday’s attack by a woman bomber is the beginning of a new trend in the country.
“This is, no doubt, the first incident of its kind, in which a woman suicide bomber is involved, but it was not unexpected,” Imtiaz Hussein, a Peshawar-based security analyst, told.
Hussein opines that the indiscriminate killings of civilians in the US drone attacks and army operations against Taliban militants are behind the induction of woman in the conflict.
“They do not have to do much to persuade their mothers and sisters to avenge the killing of children.”
A recent intelligence report has warned that Taliban militants are recruiting and training women relatives of those killed in US drone attacks and military operations to avenge their killings.
The report said that burqa-clad women may strike girls colleges and schools in Peshawar, Islamabad, and Lahore.
Hussein predicts more attacks by women bombers in coming days.
“Militants will go all out and use every tactic to scuttle the Waziristan operation,” he said.
“Women are more difficult to track and intercept as compared to men. Therefore, they (women) might be used in future terrorist attacks.”
–Agencies–