Peshawar: Suspected militants attacked a Pakistani checkpost near the US consulate in Peshawar on Monday, hours after a suicide bomber killed 40 people elsewhere in the northwest, a witness and a doctor said.
“I saw attackers in two vehicles. Some of them carried rocket-propelled grenades. They first opened fire at security personnel at the post near the consulate and then blasts went off,” city resident Siraj Afridi said.
Other residents said an initial blast went off in the neighbourhood of the US consulate and they later heard two other blasts and rifle fire in the same area. The US Embassy in Islamabad said it had no information.
Police in the city confirmed there had been two blasts but said they had no information about the cause or if they had inflicted casualties.
Local TV footage showed soldiers taking up defensive positions on the road outside the consulate. One soldier hit the ground in the middle of the road and began firing as a large explosion sent up a plume of grey smoke nearby. Rescue workers carried at least one wounded man away on a stretcher, his clothing soaked with blood.
The US is only one of three countries to have a diplomatic presence in Peshawar, which has seen repeated militant attacks over the last 18 months.
As well as attacking militants and hunting Al Qaida in the northwest, Washington is also funding many development projects in the region aimed at cutting support for the insurgents. It is unclear how many diplomats work at the consulate in Peshawar.
A suspected suicide bomber blew himself up at a meeting of an ethnic Pashtun nationalist political party earlier in the day, killing 40 people in another northwestern region, a hospital doctor said.
Police said the bomber tried to get into the ground where the Awami National Party (ANP), which heads a coalition government in North West Frontier Province, was holding a meeting but he was stopped and blew himself up.
The ANP, a member of the ruling federal coalition government, is a largely secular party and a staunch opponent of militants battling the state.
Pakistani Taliban militants have attacked ANP gatherings before. The meeting was called to celebrate the renaming of NWFP, which the party has long demanded.
Under constitutional amendments expected to be approved in parliament this week, the province will be renamed Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, in a bid to represent its dominant Pashtun population.
“The Taliban have lost the battle and now, out of desperation, they are carrying out such cowardly attacks,” said Haji Mohammad Adeel, an ANP senator.
The long-awaited constitutional amendments, which will also transfer President Asif Ali Zardari's sweeping powers to the prime minister, are due to be taken up in the National Assembly on Tuesday.
The amendments should ease opposition to the unpopular Zardari and promote political stability in the nuclear-armed US ally, analysts say.
Zardari is due to address parliament later on Monday in the capital, Islamabad, where security has been stepped up for the session.
What do you think is the main cause of unrest in Pakistan? What measures can be taken in the short-term to restore law and order?
