Journalists given 'foolproof' security after suicide attack
Tuesday's blast was the first on a city press club
Peshawar: Pakistani authorities ordered "foolproof" security Wednesday for journalists across the country a day after a suicide bomber attacked a press club in the northwestern city of Peshawar.
The attack on the club was the latest in a surge of militant strikes in Peshawar which began when the army went on the offensive against Pakistani Taliban militants in their South Waziristan stronghold on the Afghan border in October.
Reporters have been attacked and killed in Pakistan's ethnic Pashtun tribal regions along the Afghan border and elsewhere, but the Tuesday blast was the first on a reporters' club in a city.
The blast indicated a new trend in terrorist attacks and posed a serious threat, the Interior Ministry said.
"In order to avert such attacks in future, foolproof security arrangements for all press clubs... and prominent media persons have to be ensured," the ministry said in an order to provincial interior departments.
A lone bomber wearing a suicide vest blew himself up at the gate of the club when a police guard tried to stop him from getting in, killing three people and wounding 17.
The club released closed-circuit television footage of the attack showing a man wearing a black jacket over a traditional loose tunic and baggy trousers talking to the guard as three other men stood nearby, just inside the club premises. The club is a meeting place for journalists in the city.
