(4)Suicide bomber strikes outside Pakistani naval headquarters
A Taliban suicide bomber detonated outside the headquarters of the Pakistani Navy in Islamabad, killing one security guard and critically wounding two others, in the latest attack against the military.
The teenaged suicide bomber detonated his bomb as he was being searched at a checkpoint at the front gate of the Navy Headquarters.
"The bomber was about 17 to 18 years old," Fazeel Asghar, the senior administrative official in Islamabad told Dawn. "He was wearing a suicide jacket. He came to the gate and tried to enter the complex."
"Security officials checked him and one navy police constable, Mohammad Ashraf, asked him to take off his coat," Asghar continued. "The bomber then blew himself up and the navy constable died in the blast."
The Taliban and allied Pakistani jihadi groups have conducted multiple attacks against military and police headquarters over the past year. Since Oct. 5, when the Taliban launched their terror campaign, they have conducted a military assault on the Army General Headquarters in Rawalpindi and against police centers in Lahore, and destroyed the headquarters of the Inter-Services Intelligence agency's counterterrorism unit in Peshawar.
Today's suicide attack in Islamabad is the second in two days. Yesterday a suicide bomber in Swat killed a member of the provincial assembly of the Northwest Frontier Province. The assembly member was on a Taliban hit list issued in the spring by Swat Taliban leader Mullah Fazlullah.
Also yesterday, the Taliban assassinated three tribal leaders in the tribal agency of Arakzai, and another in the district of Swabi. The Taliban are attempting to smash any tribal resistance to their movement in the Northwest.
