When on Monday the armed pro-Al Qaeda militants in the notorious North-Western Frontier Province agreed to a ceasefire agreement with the Pakistan government, there was surge of hope that this time Pakistan could just move forward in eradicating extremism and terrorism from its boundaries. But one day later all those hopes have been ripped apart with yet another bomb attack that was inches close to getting the scalp of the country’s President himself.
President General Pervez Musharraf was in his office at the army headquarters in Rawalpindi on Tuesday when a suicide bomber detonated the explosives he had wore and killed two policemen and two paramilitary soldiers.
The suicide bomber is supposed to be a militant and the attack comes as a sharp reminder to the Musharraf regime that it has to travel a long distance in order to secure complete control of the volatile insurgency situation in the nation.
The third bombing in Rawalpindi inside just two months has helped to swell tensions and apprehension in the city. The truth that suicide bombers have infiltrated even the most peaceful of Pakistani cities cannot be obscured anymore and President Musharraf has once more got some calculations to make.
Pakistan has come under increasing attack by the international community for failing to combat the rise of insurgency in the rebel areas in the country’s northwestern region. This bomb attack, which might have targeted at the President himself, would flare up the tension in the nation to an even greater degree.
Image Source: Javno
Source: BBC
