The Pakistani Taliban on Friday claimed responsibility for a rare female suicide attack and another bombing against police to “avenge” military operations in the lawless tribal belt. A woman in her late teens blew herself up near a police checkpost, killing another woman just hours after a separate bomb planted in a push cart killed six people in Peshawar.
The head of the Pakistani Taliban in the tribal district of Mohmand, where Pakistani troops are fighting against insurgents, said using women bombers was part of a new strategy. “It is part of our strategy and in war strategies keep on changing,” Omar Khalid told AFP by telephone from an undisclosed location. “The blasts were in reaction to the current military operation in the tribal areas,” he said, threatening further attacks until offensives waged “to appease the United States” come to an end.
The Taliban bitterly oppose Islamabad’s US alliance in the war against the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan and US drone strikes on Pakistani soil, which leaked American diplomatic cables showed the government quietly approved.
