The ROP strikes again.
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Two explosions struck a paramilitary training center in northwestern Pakistan on Friday, killing at least 68 people — nearly all recruits — in the bloodiest attack in the country since a U.S. raid killed al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden.
A suicide bomber detonated at least one of the blasts in the Shabqadar area of Charsadda district, police said.
Dozens of people also were wounded when the explosions went off at a main gate of the Frontier Constabulary training site, police official Nisar Khan said.
Many recruits were boarding vehicles to go home for a short break at the end of a recent training session.
No group immediately claimed responsibility. But militants have pledged to avenge bin Laden’s May 2 killing, and many have been expecting reprisal strikes on Pakistani territory.
Update:
SHABQADAR, Pakistan (AP) — A pair of suicide bombers attacked recruits leaving a paramilitary training center in Pakistan on Friday, killing 80 people in the first retaliation for the killing of Osama bin Laden by American commandos. The Taliban claimed responsibility, blaming the Pakistani military for failing to stop the U.S. raid.
The blasts in the northwest were a reminder of the savagery of al-Qaida-linked militants in Pakistan. They occurred even as the country faces international suspicion that elements within its security forces may have been harboring bin Laden, who was killed last week in a raid in Abbottabad, about a three hours’ drive from the scene of the bombing.
“We have done this to avenge the Abbottabad incident,” Ahsanullah Ahsan, a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, told The Associated Press in a phone call. He warned that the group was also planning attacks on Americans living inside Pakistan.
The bombers blew themselves up in Shabqadar at the main gate of the facility for the Frontier Constabulary, a poorly equipped but front-line force in the battle against al-Qaida and allied Islamist groups like the Pakistani Taliban close to the Afghan border. Like other branches of Pakistan’s security forces, it has received U.S. funding to try to sharpen its skills.