Car Bomb at Pakistan Market Kills at Least 91

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A car bomb tore through a busy market in northwestern Pakistan on Wednesday, killing 91 people as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visited the country and pledged American support for its campaign against Islamist militants.

More than 200 people were wounded in the blast in the main northwestern city of Peshawar, the deadliest in a surge of attacks this month. The government blamed militants seeking to avenge an army offensive launched this month against Al Qaeda and Taliban in their stronghold close to the Afghan border.

The bomb destroyed much of a market selling bangles, dresses and toys that was popular with women and children.

It collapsed buildings, including a mosque, and set shops on fire in an old part of the city crisscrossed with narrow alleys and clogged with stalls. Wounded people sat amid burning debris and body parts as a huge plume of gray smoke rose above the city.

Crying for help, men grabbed at the wreckage, trying to pull out survivors trapped beneath. One two-story building collapsed as firefighters doused it with water, triggering more panic.

"There was a deafening sound and I was like a blind man for a few minutes," said Mohammad Usman, who was wounded in the shoulder. "I heard women and children crying and started to help others. There was the smell of human flesh in the air."

Clinton, on her first visit to Pakistan as secretary of state, was a three-hour drive away in the capital, Islamabad, when the blast took place. Speaking to reporters, she praised the army's anti-Taliban offensive in South Waziristan and offered U.S. support.

As anyone paying attention to Pakistan has noticed, the Pak army has basically invaded its own country on operations in the tribal areas which have been increasing lately.

Pakistani public opinion is starting to sway against the Taliban the way Iraqi opinion did against AQ. They’re tired of stuff blowing up and people getting killed every other day. While the Taliban violence is intended to dissuade the army from keeping up the operations, the civilian backlash is actually forcing the army to take out the Taliban trash or else lose support. Also the Taliban is sort of split into the “neo-Taliban,” which has adopted AQ’s global outlook and use of technology (like internet, cell phones, etc for the purposes of coordinating attacks & recruiting), and the “old Taliban,” which is more focused on local Islamic government for the Pashtuns, and looks down on any sort of modern technology. AQ threw a wrench into Pakistan’s cooperation with the Taliban on 9/11 by brining international attention to Pakistan and forcing them to pick sides (or at least pretend to pick a side and then play one off the other). The old smooth-sailing alliance with the Taliban died on 9/11. And Pakistan hates AQ for it. That’s why they rounded up hundreds of AQ guys after 9/11 but not one single Taliban guy. Pakistani Taliban are mostly neo-Taliban, and because of their closer ties to AQ the Paks are starting to distrust them, thus leading to increasing counterterrorism operations in FATA.

Also many people are reportedly already complaining about Zardari’s corruption and incompetence and calling for Musharraf, or at least a military dictatorship, to come back.

Neither Mushy or Zardari were/are truly interested in stamping out the Taliban, since they’ve been their primary tool used in antagonizing India, but the change of public opinion is rather interesting.

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