3 special operations soldiers, children killed in suicide attack on convoy
ISLAMABAD – Suspicion intensified Thursday that a suicide car bomber who killed three U.S. soldiers training Pakistani troops along the Afghan border had inside information on their movements. If confirmed that Wednesday’s suicide attack was aimed at the Americans, it would indicate an increased sophistication in militant tactics, as well as potential infiltration of extremists in Pakistani security forces.
A Pakistani police officer at the site of a suicide bombing attack that killed three U.S. soldiers in Pakistan on Wednesday. Source
Thousands of Pakistanis in at least four cities, meanwhile, protested a New York jury’s conviction of a U.S.-educated Pakistani woman for shooting at American security officials in Afghanistan — shouting anti-U.S. slogans and burning the Stars and Stripes.
The attack on U.S. forces occurred in Lower Dir, a northwest district believed to be a crossroads for al-Qaida and the Taliban. The blast also killed three schoolgirls and a Pakistani paramilitary soldier. Two more U.S. soldiers were among dozens wounded.
Police official Naeem Khan said Thursday that authorities were investigating whether the suicide bomber knew the soldiers would be passing through Shahi Koto town and which vehicle to target in the five-car convoy, which also included Pakistani troops.
Such convoys usually include green military vehicles carrying armed troops who are clearly visible. The Pakistani forces could also have been the target as they have frequently been over the past several years.
‘Massive search’
“We launched a massive search in the area yesterday, and now about 35 suspects are in our custody, and we are questioning them in an effort to trace those who orchestrated the suicide attack,” Khan said. “God willing, we will capture those responsible for this carnage.”
Local resident Gohar Khan said he saw a small car attack the convoy.
“As soon as the convoy appeared it rushed to that place and exploded,” he told The Associated Press.
The soldiers killed were part of a small group of American troops training members of Pakistan’s paramilitary Frontier Corps.
Training local forces is considered an important way to reduce the threat of militants using Pakistani soil as a staging ground for attacks on Western troops in Afghanistan, especially since Pakistan does not allow U.S. combat troops on its territory.
The soldiers’ deaths were the first known U.S. military fatalities in nearly three years in Pakistan’s Afghan border region.
The latest attack drew rare attention to the training program, which officials rarely discuss because of anti-American feelings here.
Protests over N.Y. conviction
That sentiment flared Thursday as demonstrators protested a New York jury’s conviction of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani woman accused of shooting at American security personnel who came to interrogate her after her arrest in Afghanistan’s central Ghazni province.
Many Pakistanis believe the U.S. has fabricated the charges. Some suspect the Americans had held the thin neuroscience specialist in a secret prison — allegations the U.S. denies. Siddiqui had been missing for five years before being picked up in Afghanistan in 2008.
A Manhattan federal jury convicted Siddiqui on Wednesday on two counts of attempted murder, though it found the act was not premeditated. Siddiqui was also convicted of armed assault, using and carrying a firearm, and assault of U.S. officers and employees.
Pakistanis denounced the verdict against Siddiqui, a devout Muslim who studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Brandeis University before returning to Pakistan following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
‘We hate America’
“We hate America,” “We hate U.S. judiciary,” and “Down with the US,” read some of the signs carried by burqa-clad women protesting in the southern city of Karachi, the hometown of Siddiqui’s family.
Another reason Pakistanis are upset with the U.S. is its use of missile strikes to target militants in the northwest.


Awlaki: Because I am a Muslim and I promote Islam. The charge is “incitement”; my relationships with Nidal Hasan, Umar Farouk and some 9/11 attackers, and now I am accused of being linked to 14 cases. All this comes as part of the attempt to liquidate the voices that call for defending the rights of the Umma [Muslim nation].
My fellow mujahid [a Muslim engaged in jihad] Umar Farouk, may Allah free him, is one of my students, and yes there was some contact between me and him, but I did not issue a fatwa allowing him to carry out this operation.
It would have been better if the plane was a military one or if it was a US military target. Al-Qaeda organisation has its options, and the American people live [in] a democratic system and that is why they are held responsible for their policies.
Undoubtedly. The sea is occupied; the Gulf of Aden, the Red Sea, Suqatra island, and the air is occupied by the drones.

its chief commander, Ilyas Kashmiri, that the CIA planned to broaden the monitoring of the possible movement of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.













