Eighty-Eight Killed in Attack as Revenge for Osama’s death

At least 88 people, mostly recruits from Pakistan’s security forces, were killed in a double suicide attack in northern part of the country by the Taliban in “revenge” for the death of Osama bin Laden.

Police sources told Efe that 79 recruits and nine civilians were killed in a double suicide attack against an academy of the border guard (“Frontier Corps” or FC) in the town of Charsadda, about two hours’ drive from Islamabad.

15 of the bodies were charred by the intensity of the explosions, according to sources who stated further that there are 105 people injured, 25 of them seriously.

The double attack took place when recruits of this security force were preparing to return by bus to their homes after several days of training at the training center.

At least 15 of these buses were damaged because of the loud explosions, according to a source from the Charsadda police.

The attack was claimed by a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban (Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, TTP), Ehsanul Ehsan, who in a text message sent to the press said “revenge for (death of) Osama will continue” in the form of attack.

“Do not send your children (to enlist) to security forces,” a Pakistani spokesman said in the message, written in Urdu.

The FC, a vestige of the British Empire, are intended to protect the western flank of the country and are composed predominantly of Pashtuns, the same ethnic group who inhabit the tribal areas from which the Taliban also derive from.

This is the first major attack since the death of bin Laden on May 2, in the northern city of Abbottabad, in a U.S. operation. However, that same day a bomb was detonated by remote control, killing nine people near a mosque in Charsadda.

In a condemning statement, the Pakistani Prime Minister, Yusuf Raza Guilani, criticized the insurgents as having “no respect for human life or religion” and of following “their own agenda and vile” policy.

Guilani took the opportunity to reiterate the willingness of Pakistan to fight terrorism in a time when the international community has questioned the sincerity of the country’s efforts and the role of its military and secret services (ISI).

The town in which bin Laden appeared, Abbottabad, is a medium sized city and not far from Islamabad, where an important military training academy, Kakaul, is headquartered and is also home to many military retirees.

These days, despite suspicions, Guilani has endeavored to remind people that it is the Pakistanis who have paid a higher price in the post-9/11 world: 30,000 civilians, he said, and another 5,000 members of the security forces have died in insurgent attacks or military operations.

This year, the Taliban has made repeated attacks against Pakistani security forces, with particular intensity in the northwestern province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) where, for example, in an attack on another military recruiting center left 31 cadets killed in Mardan this past February.

Today’s attack is a blow to the Pakistani security forces but confirms that Pakistan is still among the main targets of the Taliban, the terrorist network al-Qaida or related groups.

Both the ISI and the army have admitted being unaware that the U.S. planned an operation against the leader of al-Qaida, and are making an effort to show that they provided relevant information to the CIA that enabled it to find the whereabouts of bin Laden.

One of the most widespread versions suggested by the security apparatus is that the CIA could have acted on intercepted calls in Arabic shared with them by the ISI, which served as a launching point, a source close to military circles informed Efe.

Other branches of Pakistani intelligence or foreign intelligence have not corroborated this.