Posted on 05/11/2006 5:08:02 AM PDT by nuconvert
6 Anti-Terrorism Police Killed in Pakistan
By NASEER KAKAR, Associated Press Writer
Five bombs ripped through a firing range at a police training school in southwestern Pakistan on Thursday, killing six members of an anti-terrorism unit and wounding nine, police and a doctor said.
The attack was the deadliest in weeks in southwestern Baluchistan province, a vast region where renegade tribesmen are fighting for greater autonomy and an increase in royalties for resources extracted from their lands.
The bombs, wired together to go off in sequence, were hidden around a firing range at the training academy in Quetta, the provincial capital, said senior city police official Wazir Nasar. The explosions occurred as 52 members of a police anti-terrorism unit were doing physical exercises, he said.
Two ethnic Baluch tribesmen were detained near the scene after the bombings and were being questioned, Nasar said.
Six policemen were killed and nine were wounded, said Mohammed Abdullah, a doctor at the state-run Civil Hospital in Quetta. Four of the injured were seriously hurt.
The explosion left five small craters across the field that made up the firing range. The area was strewn with body parts and black and khaki scraps of police uniforms, according to an Associated Press reporter.
The bombs were made from land mines, Baluchistan police chief Chaudhry Mohammed Yaqoob said on Pakistan's Geo television.
Hundreds of security forces have been deployed in tribal belts in Baluchistan, the site of gas fields that supply much of Pakistan's energy needs. Most of the insurgent violence comes in the form of small-scale bombings targeting pipelines, railroads and other government installations.
The government has tried to ease tension in the region by investing in several large projects and has accused some tribal elders of embezzling some of the gas royalties.
pong
Very sad news. With that type of coordination and access, it was almost certainly an inside job.
yup
...and the firemen were across town watching the firehouse burn down.
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