KEY POINTS:
KARACHI - A violent backlash against the storming of the notorious Lal Masjid mosque is consuming parts of Pakistan, with around 65 people - many of them soldiers - being killed in a series of suicide bomb attacks in the northwest of the country.
At the same time, Taleban militants have ended a 10-month ceasefire agreement with the Government along the Afghanistan frontier.
An estimated 38 people were killed yesterday in at least two separate attacks, though there was confusion about the details. At least 80 people were wounded. In addition, 24 troops were killed in another incident on Sunday.
The Government had been expecting violence in the northwest since militants made a series of threats to seek revenge for the military operation to clear Islamabad's Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, last week in which at least 80 students died.
It had deployed thousands of additional troops to confront demands from extremists for a holy war.
Reports suggest the decision by local Taleban in North Waziristan to end the ceasefire agreement was not linked to the Red Mosque operation.
That too, however, creates further problems for the military. Under the pact, authorities agreed to stop operations against militants in return for their pledge not to send fighters into Afghanistan or to launch attacks on security forces.
While the US said the agreement had not stopped insurgent raids into Afghanistan, it had lead to a sharp fall in attacks on Pakistani forces in North Waziristan.
- INDEPENDENT
