Pakistan is hit by a new wave of terrorism just as President Pervez Musharraf has said that the country is being subjected to a systematic campaign of killing forits bold and courageous stand against international terrorism.
The most recent incident of terrorism happened on May 8. A suicide bomber smashed his car packed with explosives into a bus in Karachi, killing 15 people including 11 French nationals and injuring 23 others including 12 Frenchmen.
In the overnight raids, the Pakistani police have arrested 23 members of extremists groups which are suspected of having links with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network, blamed for September 11 attacks on the United States.
The worst attack of its kind in the country's history came within two months of terrorists' attack in a church in the federalcapital of Islamabad in March which killed five people and injured45 others, most of whom were foreigners.
Earlier in January American journalist Daniel Pearl was kidnapped in Karachi and later being confirmed killed by extremists.
Only so far in May, dozens of people have been killed in terrorist attacks in Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi. Among them were Principal of the Jamia Millia Technical College Zafar Mehdi killed in Karachi, noted religious scholar Ghulam Murtaza Malik killed in Lahore and two policemen killed in Rawalpindi.
Pakistan, for a moment, has reacted with caution in making a judgment of who carried out the suicide bomber attack. But citing the mode of attack and the choice of target, it holds al-Qaida network as the prime suspect.
Analysts here believe that the way the attack was carried out indicates to involvement of al-Qaida elements. They cite use of a suicide bomber and killing of foreign nationals, specially those strongly allied with the United States, to support their view.
The Government is giving very little weight to the possibility of the country's extremist elements being involved in this heinousincident.
It believes that such elements - belonging to banned extremist religious groups - may have a hand in some individual killings ofreputed persons, but they cannot carry out attack of such magnitude.
A number of fleeing Taliban and al-Qaida fighters have been rounded up in Pakistan and in a raid last month, the security officials hauled up members of the group including Osama's top aide Abu Zubaydah.
While chairing an emergency meeting of intelligence services onMay 8, President Musharraf announced new security measures to check the rising tide of terrorism.
Without naming, however, he said that troops would be increasedto man the Pak-Afghan border.
Later in an interview with state-owned PTV, President Musharrafexpressed resolve to counter this act of international terrorism with full force.
"I would appeal to the international community to understand our domestic environment resulting from our cooperation against terrorism. Understand our concerns and also understand that Pakistan will do and is already doing all that it can to combat terrorism."
(Xinhua News Agency May 10, 2002)
