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Taliban claims bombing
THE Taliban in Pakistan claimed responsibility yesterday for a deadly bomb and gun attack on police and intelligence agency offices, saying it was revenge for the army's current offensive against militants in the country's northwest.
Hakimullah Mehsud, a deputy to Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, told The Associated Press in a telephone call that Wednesday's suicide attack in Lahore "was in response to the Swat operation where innocent people have been killed."
About 30 people died and more than 300 were wounded when gunmen fired and lobbed grenades at offices of the police and top intelligence agency, then detonated an explosive-laden van in a busy street in Pakistan's second-largest city - a major cultural center and a hub for the armed services.
A little-known group calling itself the Taliban Movement in Punjab has also claimed responsibility for the attack. The claim could not be verified.
The attack on Lahore, the capital of the Punjab province, was far from the northwestern Afghan border region where the Taliban have established strongholds in the Swat Valley.
The military launched a major offensive in the Swat region late last month after the Taliban seized control of a neighboring district in a bold bid to extend their influence. Washington and other Western allies see the campaign as a test of the Pakistani government's resolve to take on the spread of militancy.
Hakimullah Mehsud, a deputy to Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, told The Associated Press in a telephone call that Wednesday's suicide attack in Lahore "was in response to the Swat operation where innocent people have been killed."
About 30 people died and more than 300 were wounded when gunmen fired and lobbed grenades at offices of the police and top intelligence agency, then detonated an explosive-laden van in a busy street in Pakistan's second-largest city - a major cultural center and a hub for the armed services.
A little-known group calling itself the Taliban Movement in Punjab has also claimed responsibility for the attack. The claim could not be verified.
The attack on Lahore, the capital of the Punjab province, was far from the northwestern Afghan border region where the Taliban have established strongholds in the Swat Valley.
The military launched a major offensive in the Swat region late last month after the Taliban seized control of a neighboring district in a bold bid to extend their influence. Washington and other Western allies see the campaign as a test of the Pakistani government's resolve to take on the spread of militancy.
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