Suicide Bombers

Here is a timeline of the deadliest bomb attacks since 2007:

February 3, 2007 - A truck bomb kills 135 people and wounds 305 at a market in the Sadriya quarter of central Baghdad.

March 6 - Two suicide bombers strike in Hilla, south of Baghdad, killing 105 pilgrims. Insurgents launch a total of 12 attacks against Shi'ite pilgrims. In all, 137 pilgrims are killed and 310 are wounded.

March 27 - A truck bomb explodes in Tal Afar, close to the Syrian border and Mosul, killing 152 people.

April 18 - Multiple car bombings kill 191 people around Baghdad. One car bomb near a market in the central Sadriya neighborhood kills 140 people and wounds 150.

April 28 - A suicide car bomber kills 60 people and wounds 170 at a checkpoint in Kerbala.

May 13 - Suicide truck bombing in northern town of Makhmour kills 50, with 70 people wounded.

June 19 - A car bomb near the Khilani Shi'ite mosque in central Baghdad kills 87 people.

July 7 - A truck packed with explosives covered with hay blows up in a crowded market in the northern town of Tuz Khurmato, killing 150 people and wounding 250.

July 16 - Eighty-five people are killed by a suicide truck bomb in the city of Kirkuk. At least 180 are wounded.

August 14 - At least three suicide bombers driving fuel tankers kill and wound at least 796 people in Yazidi residential compounds in the villages of Kahtaniya and al-Jazeera in northern Iraq near the Syrian border. Yazidis are members of a pre-Islamic Kurdish sect who live in northern Iraq and Syria.

February 1, 2008 - Female bombers kill 99 people in attacks blamed on al Qaeda at two popular Baghdad pet markets, the city's worst attacks in six months.

February 24 - A suicide bomber targeting pilgrims heading to one of Shi'ite Islam's holiest rites in southern Kerbala kills 63 people and wounds scores in Iskandariya.

March 6 - Two bombs explode in Baghdad's mainly Shi'ite Karrada district, killing 68 people. Another 120 were wounded.

April 15 - A car bomb kills 40 people and wounds 80 outside a provincial government headquarters in Baquba, local capital of Diyala province. Another car bomb, believed to be driven by a suicide attacker, explodes outside a popular restaurant in Ramadi, capital of Anbar province, killing 13.

June 17 - A truck bomb blasts the al-Hurriya neighborhood of northwestern Baghdad, killing 63 people and wounding 75. The U.S. military said the attack was carried out by a "special groups cell."

December 11 - A suicide bomber detonates explosives inside a Kurdish restaurant north of Kirkuk. At least 50 people are killed and 109 wounded in the blast.

June 20, 2009 - A suicide bomber detonates a truck filled with explosives as crowds of worshippers leave the Shi'ite al-Rasul mosque in Taza, near Kirkuk. At least 73 people were killed and more than 250 wounded.

June 24, 2009 - A bomb kills 72 people at a busy market in eastern Baghdad's Sadr City. At least 127 people are wounded.

(Writing by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit;)

They fired guns as they stormed past guards and set off a huge blast that killed at least five persons and wounded 65 more, Pakistani officials said.

A victim (left) being carried out of the blast site while an injured women tries to cover her wound in Peshawar

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack in the largest city in Pakistan's restive north- west. But it fit the pattern of recent Taliban attacks the militants said were in retaliation for a military campaign against them in the Swat Valley region.

Local television networks showed part of the Pearl Continental Hotel had been demolished in the blast -- reduced to concrete rubble and twisted steel. The scene was pandemonium, with armed police rushing around and men standing by looking stunned. One man held a bloodied rag to his head. A large crater was blasted into the ground.

A reporter saw six foreigners being helped out of the hotel. They all had wounds and at least two of them had bandages around their heads. One of them said: " We work for UNHCR." He added that that officials from World Food Program were also staying at the hotel.

Police official Liaqat Ali said he learned from witnesses that three men riding in a truck approached the main gate of the hotel and opened fire at security guards before driving inside.

" They drove the vehicle inside the hotel gates and blew it up on reaching close to the hotel building," Ali said.

Sahibzada Anis, a top government official in Peshawar, said at least five persons were killed.

Source: Mail Today Suicide Attack In Peshawar Hotel Kills Five

The data collected by The News reveals that around 108 people were killed and 584 injured during suicide attacks across Punjab in 2009, while 274 people were killed and 722 injured in 2008. No less than 107 people were killed and 279 injured in suicide attacks in 2007.

On February 5, 2009, 32 people were killed and 48 others injured when a suspected suicide bomber blew himself amidst a crowd of worshippers outside a mosque in Dera Ghazi Khan. Police said the blast targeted dozens of people converging on the Al Hussainia Mosque after dark, shortly before a religious gathering. Police blamed sectarian extremists for the incident. The explosion occurred just 50 feet short of the mosque. On March 16, 2009, around 15 people were killed and 25 injured when a suicide bomber blew himself up near a busy bus stand at Pirwadhai in Rawalpindi. It was believed that the original target of the bomber could have been the participants of the `long march'. The suicide bomber riding a on a motorbike blew himself up outside a restaurant, which was set up close to a cab stand.

On March 23, 2009, a suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance of the headquarters of the Special Branch (SB), an intelligence agency of the Federal Capital Police, in Sitara Market, killing himself and a policeman.

Two police officials were wounded in the attack. Over 120 personnel of the Special Branch lived on the premises of the SB headquarters and most of them were present in their barracks at that time. Police Constable Faisal Khan, deployed at the main gate of the headquarters, reportedly got hold of the suicide bomber when he was advancing towards the barracks. The bomber detonated the bomb, killing both of them.

On April 04, 2009, eight Frontier Constabulary (FC) personnel were killed, and seven others injured, when a suicide bomber blew himself up at an FC check post on the Margalla Road in Islamabad. The blast, which took place at 7:35pm, was followed by an exchange of fire between FC personnel and unidentified accomplices of the suicide attacker. The crossfire continued for around 20 minutes. On April 5, 2009, a suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance of an imambargah in Chakwal, killing 24 people, including three children, and injuring 140 others, at a religious gathering.

The target was the gathering of around 800 people in an imambargah in Muhallah Sarpak. The majlis ended at 12:15pm and people were preparing to leave the imambargah when a 15-year old boy, who looked like an Afghan, stormed into the crowd and blew himself up. On May 27, 2009, no less than 27 people, including ISI and police officials wee killed while over 362 injured when an explosive laden vehicle was detonated amidst ISI and Rescue 15 buildings at Fatima Jinnah Road.

As per data of suicide attacks carried out during 2008, on January 10, at least 24 people, including 17 policemen, were killed and 80 others injured in a suicide bomb blast outside the Lahore High Court, minutes before the arrival of an anti-government lawyers' procession. The blast ripped through GPO Chowk in front of the Lahore High Court as the suicide bomber walked up to around 60 riot police - who had gathered there ahead of a demonstration against President General Pervez Musharraf's government - and blew himself up. Around 200 lawyers were inside the High Court at the time of the blast, and others were marching from a nearby district court.

On February 4, at least ten people were killed and around 10 others wounded when a suicide bomber crashed his bike into an armed forces bus carrying students and officials of Army Medical College, near the General Headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi. An eyewitness said the suicide bomber hit the 30-seater bus in front of National Logistic Cell offices close to the GHQ, blowing away the roof, windows and doors of the bus. Several other vehicles were also damaged. A van carrying schoolchildren was also partially damaged, but the children remained unhurt.

On February 25, a suicide bomber killed eight people, including the Pakistan Army's surgeon general, in Rawalpindi - the highest-ranking military official killed since the country joined the US-led war on terror. Lieutenant General Mushtaq Baig, surgeon general and director general of army's medical services, died after a teenage suicide bomber blew himself up next to a military convoy on a busy road in Rawalpindi. Five civilians were also killed, while 25 others were injured, an army statement said.

On March 4, eight people were killed and 24 others injured when two suicide bombers blew themselves up in the parking area of the Pakistan Navy War College in Lahore. The incident occurred at around 1:10pm when classes in the Pakistan Navy War College were in progress. Five Navy officials and two suicide bombers died on the spot while one Navy official succumbed to injuries at a hospital.

On March 11, at least 30 people were killed and more than 200 injured in suicide blasts at the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) headquarters and an advertising agency office in Lahore. The first attack was carried out at the FIA regional headquarters on Temple Road, severely damaging the eight-storey establishment and adjacent buildings. The building also housed the offices of a special US-trained unit created to counter terrorism. The second attack was carried out on Bungalow No 83/F in Model Town - the office of an advertising agency. Two children and a gardener died in the bombing and about 12 people were injured.

On June 2, a suspected suicide bomber blew up his car outside the Danish embassy in Islamabad, killing at least eight persons and injuring 30 others. The Danish foreign minister said a Pakistani cleaner employed at the embassy and a Danish citizen of Pakistani origin had died and three other local employees were hurt, but the embassy's four Danish staffers were unharmed.

On July 6, 20 people, including 15 policemen, were killed and more than 40 people injured in a suicide attack near Melody Market area of Islamabad. The suicide bomber targeted policemen deployed at a rally observing the first anniversary of an army raid on the Lal Masjid in Islamabad.

On August 13, a suicide blast in Lahore killed at least nine persons and injured more than 35, targeting policemen standing guard on the eve of the Independence Day. The attack took place at the busy Dubai Chowk in the Allama Iqbal Town area at around 11:34pm, as citizens poured into streets before midnight to celebrate the 61st anniversary of Pakistan's independence, which falls on August 14. Among the dead were two policemen and a woman.

On August 21, two suicide bombers blew themselves up at the gates of the Pakistan Ordnance Factories (POF) in the high security cantonment town of Wah, around 30 kilometres from Islamabad, killing at least 70 persons in what was described as the deadliest attack on a military installation in the country's history. The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan claimed responsibility for the attack. The POF at Wah is a cluster of around 20 industrial units producing artillery, tank and anti-aircraft ammunition for the Pakistani armed forces. It employs around 25,000 to 30,000 workers.

On September 20, a suicide bomber detonated a truck packed with explosives at the Marriott Hotel in capital Islamabad, killing at least 60 people. At least 200 people, including a Pakistan People's Party legislator, were injured in the explosion, which ruptured a gas pipeline and triggered a huge blaze. A US national was killed and several foreigners were injured. A group calling itself Fedayeen-i-Islam claimed responsibility for the suicide attack.

On October 6, a suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowd of people at the house of Rashid Akbar Niwani, a Shia Member of National Assembly from the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), in Bhakkar, 260 kilometres southwest of Islamabad, killing 25 people and wounding 60 others, including Niwani.

On October 9, a suspected suicide car bombing destroyed part of an Anti-Terror Squad building and wounded at least six policemen in the heavily guarded Police Lines area in Islamabad.

In 2007, no less than six incidents of suicide attacks were reported in Punjab. On September 4, at least 30 people were killed and 70 others wounded in two suicide attacks at Qasim Market and RA Bazaar in the garrison city of Rawalpindi. The first suicide bomber targeted a bus that was carrying around 35 employees of a defence agency to their office near the Qasim Market, killing at least 20 people. Soon after, another blast occurred near the RA Bazaar police station, killing 10 more people.

On October 30, a suicide bomber killed eight people, including three police personnel, and injured at least 18 others, including 14 police personnel, when he blew himself up at a police picket near district courts in the cantonment area of Rawalpindi. President Pervez Musharraf had reportedly been meeting governors and chief ministers at Camp Office less than a kilometre away from the site. The fortified army posts at the checkpoint and the nearby gate to the residence of Joint Chief of Army Staff Chairman General Tariq Majid were reportedly scarred with shrapnel and spattered with blood.

On November 1, a suicide bomber rammed his motorcycle into a Pakistan Air Force (PAF) bus, killing seven officers of the PAF and three civilians on the Faisalabad Road in Sargodha. At least 28 people were wounded in the attack. The bus was reportedly carrying PAF staff from the Mushaf Mir Airbase to Kirana Ammunition Depot when the bomber targeted the bus at approximately 6.45am.

On November 24, two suicide bombers simultaneously targeted military personnel and installations at two different places in Rawalpindi, claiming over 32 lives and wounding 55 others. In the first attack that occurred at 7:55am, the suicide bomber while trying to enter the Hamza Camp, the main office of the ISI, hit the staff bus of the agency. The blast, which occurred 200 metres from Faizabad at the Murree Road, killed over 30 personnel in the bus and guards standing at the main gate. At the same time near the GHQ, another suicide bomber blew up his car after hitting an Army check-post when he was intercepted while trying to infiltrate into the high security zone. Two Army personnel were killed while one was injured in the second attack.

On December 10, eight people, including five schoolchildren, were injured when a suicide bomber exploded his car targeting a Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC) bus carrying air force employees' children at a military base at Kamra around 50 kilometres northwest of Islamabad. A suicide bomber exploded his car on the outskirts of the PAC factories on the Qutba-Attock Road on Monday at 7.30am near a PAC school bus carrying children to schools in Attock City.

On December 27, Benazir Bhutto, the chairperson of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), was assassinated in a gun and suicide attack as she drove away from a campaign rally just minutes after addressing thousands of supporters at Liaquat Bagh in Rawalpindi. At least 30 more people were killed and over 100 others wounded in the attack.

A crowd of women and children was struck Thursday by a bomber in Baghdad, one of three attacks in Iraq that killed 80.

The second suicide bombing struck a restaurant filled with Iranian tourists in a restive city north of the capital.

The number of people killed in the attacks is the largest single-day total since February 2008.

The overall level of violence in Iraq is at its lowest since the American invasion in 2003, and Iraqis have been venturing out to parks, restaurants and nightclubs. But a string of recent attacks, highly organized and carried out under tight security, has raised worries that Baathist and jihadi militants are regrouping into a smaller but still lethal insurgency seeking to reassert itself as the American troop presence on the ground is reduced before a full withdrawal in 2011.

"The government was treating the situation like they'd won a victory," said Sheik Jalal al-Din Saghir, a member of Parliament from the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, a Shiite political party. "They relaxed. We can't ignore that there were security successes, but that doesn't mean the story is finished."

The government may have scored at least one important security victory on Thursday, announcing the capture of a major leader of the Sunni insurgency, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi. But reports of his arrest, and even his supposed death, have been announced before, and some American military officials even question whether such a man exists.

Iraqi leaders say Mr. Baghdadi is the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella group of Sunni militant forces that includes Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the homegrown group that American intelligence officials say is led by foreigners.

The Iraqi military provided no further details about the arrest, and the United States military has not confirmed it.

On Thursday, Hussein al-Shami, a senior adviser to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, defended the government's security gains.

"The security situation is still good, but there are some sleeper cells that are targeting the softer areas," he said. "They just want to send a message to the government and the world that they are still here."

The woman who blew herself up in Baghdad's central Karada district on Thursday resembled most of the other women crowded outside a food distribution site that was catering mainly to those displaced by the war.

She wore a black abaya and, like many of the other women, was walking with a child, in her case a young girl, according to Iraqi Army and police officials who interviewed survivors at the scene.

The woman stood out, the witnesses said, only because she began nudging her way through the crowd, which had been waiting patiently for the bags of flour, bottles of cooking oil and other staples that the police were handing out. The witnesses said she tugged the child, who looked about 5 years old, along with her.

Once she reached the center of the crowd, she set off the blast, with explosives that the police believe she hid under her flowing clothes.

Afterward, a tattered black abaya stuck to a wall on the first-floor balcony of an adjacent apartment building, singed by the explosion. The sidewalk was littered with bags of macaroni and loose leaf tea that had been part of the giveaway. Flies swarmed on bits of human flesh.

One woman sat on the ground, wailing as she beat the sidewalk with the palms of her hands. She said she had lost her husband, her son, her sister and six grandchildren.

Source: www.nytimes.com 80 Are Killed in 3 Suicide Bombings in Iraq

An Iraqi police officer inspects a car damaged in a suicide bomber attack in Baqouba, the capital of Iraq's Diyala province, 60 kilometers (35 miles) northeast of Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, April 20, 2009. A suicide bomber wearing an Iraqi military uniform struck a U.S. military delegation visiting the mayor of violence-wracked Baqouba on Monday, injuring at least eight American soldiers and nine others.(AP Photo)

A suicide bomber wearing an Iraqi army uniform struck a U.S. military delegation visiting the mayor of violence-wracked Baqouba on Monday, injuring at least eight American soldiers and killing three Iraqi civilians.

Police officials claimed the attacker was disguised as a soldier -- a tactic used before to pass through checkpoints -- but U.S. forces have faced attacks from actual members of the security forces as well.

In February, two police officers opened fire on U.S. soldiers in the northern city of Mosul, killing one and raising worries about insurgent infiltration in security forces.

The Baqouba attack occurred as a group of Iraqi officials, led by Mayor Abdullah al-Hiyali, waited at the main gate of the municipal building to greet the U.S. soldiers, said Raad al-Dahalaki, the deputy mayor.

Source:Associated Press Bomber strikes US soldiers meeting Iraqi officials

Security forces after Wednesday's bomb attack in Kirkuk when 10 Iraqi soldiers died in the ethnically mixed city. Iraq's security forces have lost scores of men in recent bombings

The attack came a day after a car bomb killed 10 Iraqi soldiers in the ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk in the north and marked yet another setback for Iraq's security forces, which have lost scores of men in recent bombings.

The bomber used the tried and tested technique of disguising himself as a soldier -- a simple task in a highly militarised country where many shops sell uniforms and insignia -- and joining the lunch queue. The attack was timed to coincide with the arrival of a new unit, soldiers said. The blast also wounded 50 soldiers.

The explosion occurred in Habbaniyah, to the west of Baghdad in the area known as the Sunni Triangle. Long an al-Qaeda stronghold, the terrorists were driven out over the past two years as local tribes turned on their erstwhile allies, who had tried to ignite a civil war by constantly bombing Shia civilians.

On Wednesday a car bomb in Kirkuk, a tense oil city on an ethnic fault line between Arabs and Kurds, killed 10 soldiers and wounded 22, an attack blamed on Ansar al-Sunna, a local group linked to al-Qaeda. Last week a suicide bomber also disguised in military fatigues blew himself up at a base south of Baghdad where members of an Awakening Group, a tribal militia that had turned on al-Qaeda, were queueing to collect their salaries. Nine militiamen and soldiers died in the blast.

The string of deadly attacks have underscored that while security in Iraq has improved drastically over the past two years, the country is far from stable, with terrorists still capable of causing havoc that could undermine reconciliation efforts between sectarian and ethnic groups after years of war.

Even US troops are vulnerable to the renewed bombings, with five American soldiers killed by a truck bomb at their base in Mosul in the north last week. US commanders have said that their troops may have to stay in Mosul and Baqouba, just north of the capital, beyond a June 30 deadline to withdraw from Iraq's cities because of the threat still posed there by al-Qaeda.

The bomber set off his explosives as he pulled up at a checkpoint in Charsadda, a town near the city of Peshawar.

There has so far been no claim of responsibility for the attack.

But correspondents say Pakistani Taleban militants, allied to al-Qaeda, have carried out numerous such attacks over the past two years.

The bombing shattered windows of buildings near the explosion and destroyed power cables, plunging the area into darkness, police told the BBC.

"We had information that some people from Swat wanted to get into Peshawar to carry out terrorist attacks, so we had beefed up the force at the check post," Peshawar police chief Sifwat Ghyur said.

He said that the bomb left a crater about 3m wide, while the surrounding area is littered with blood spattered bodies and debris.

The Charsadda district is near the Malakand division - including the picturesque Swat valley - where the government on Monday signed an agreement to enforce Sharia law as part of its efforts to end the long-running insurgency in the north-west.

The district has been hit by several suicide bombings and is home to the chief of the ruling Awami National Party, Asfandyar Wali Khan, who himself narrowly avoided a suicide attack last year.

The attack by a suicide bomber in the Iraqi town of Jbala, south of Baghdad was the most recent in a series of attacks that have killed dozens.

Officials said the bomber struck Saturday as a crowd of community security forces, known as the Sunni Awakening Councils, were waiting outside a military building for their paychecks.

The Iraqi government has taken over payment for the Sunni militiamen, or Sahwa members, as they are known in Arabic, from the United States. Delays in paying them have caused severe friction with the Shi'ite-led government in recent weeks.

The Sunni militias include former insurgents who have turned against al-Qaida and other groups. They have been credited with helping reduce violence in Iraq over the past year.

The Iraqi government, however, has been suspicious of the fighters, maintaining that some retain ties to the insurgency.

There are some 90,000 Awakening fighters and their tensions with the government came to a head last month in central Baghdad when the arrest of one of their leaders triggered a shootout with U.S.-backed Iraqi forces.  

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki later said the government crackdown - which escalated into a two-day gunbattle - was not politically motivated but followed a six-month investigation that tied the commander to crimes and subversion.

More than 50 people were killed in violence in Baghdad alone, this week, marking a new wave of attacks, after a recent lull. The attacks are likely to call into question the ability of Iraqi forces to maintain security in the leadup to a planned U.S. withdrawal by August 2010.

Meanwhile, Iraqi Defense Minister Abd al-Qadir Mohammed Jassem, on a visit to Moscow with Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, told reporters that his government hoped to buy more military equipment to strengthen Iraqi forces and reduce violence.

"We need major arms purchases, before the end of 2011, to meet our hopes and expectations and to maintain a good level of security inside the country and to be able to control at least 60 percent of our border," he said.

U.S. commanding General Raymond Odierno told The Times of London, in an interview this week that it was possible that US troops remain in several Iraqi cities, beyond the June 30 deadline, if violence continued.

The attacker struck the patrol in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province, a major drug-producing area, said Kamal Uddin, the deputy provincial police chief.

The members of the force were traveling in a convoy of vehicles headed for nearby districts to eradicate poppies at the time of the blast, Uddin said.

Five people -- two police officers and three civilians -- were killed in the blast, said Daud Ahmadi, the spokesman for the provincial governor. The blast also wounded four policemen and 13 civilians, Ahmadi said.

Two police vehicles and three shops were damaged in the explosion, Uddin said. He initially reported four dead policemen, but the casualty figures were later revised by Ahmadi.

A spokesman for the Taliban claimed responsibility for the blast in a phone call to an Associated Press reporter in southern Afghanistan.

In a statement, the Interior Ministry blamed "the narcotics mafia" for the attack.

Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium, the main ingredient in heroin. The Afghan opium trade accounts for 90 per cent of worldwide production. The UN estimated last year that up to US$500 million from the illegal drug trade flows to Taliban fighters and criminal groups.

Source:www.ctv.ca Suicide bomber kills 5, wounds 17 in Afghanistan

A victim of a bomb blast in Chakwal, south of Islamabad. Image From NY Times

While a suicide bomber rammed his vehicle into a military convoy in Waziristan in North Pakistan and killed 17 civilians, the second suicide attack was launched in the capital itself, where another suicide bomber blew himself up at a police camp, the second such attack in less than two weeks. The camp targeted by the bomber is situated in an upmarket residential area and the blast occurred near the check post of the Frontier Corps in Jinnah Super Market.

The Frontier Constabulary, part of Pakistan's paramilitary force, is deployed outside diplomatic missions and protect VIP homes.

The suicide bomber sneaked into the camp from the rear before blowing himself up, drawing retaliatory fire from the policemen. At least six policemen are believed to have died in the attack and an equal number of policemen are said to have been injured in the blast. The suicide attack in Waziristan took place hours after a US missile strike leveled a militant hideout in the area. As many as 350 people have died in the region by US missile strikes since August last year.

With the Afghan insurgency intensifying, US-led forces have been launching more missile strikes against Taliban militants on the Pakistani side of the border. But they seem to have been ineffective in containing the surge of militancy sweeping Pakistan.

An injured victim of a suicide bombing in Chakwal was brought to a hospital in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, on Sunday.Image from NY Times

US President Barack Obama, speaking at the end of a NATO summit in France, said Pakistan had to have the capacity to tackle the Al-Qaida.

"I informed our allies that despite difficult circumstances, we are going to put more money into Pakistan...we want to bring all of our diplomatic and development skills to bear towards strengthening Pakistan, in part because they have to have the capacity to take on Al-Qaida within their borders.

The US has said it is concerned about the ISI's contacts with extremist groups, including those led by Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the Haqqani network.

"The ISI's contacts with some of these extremist groups -- with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Haqqani network, Commander Nazir and others -- are a real concern to us, and we have made these concerns known directly to the Pakistanis," Defence Secretary Robert Gates said in an interview to Afghan TV.

While top officials of the Obama administration have now started publicly acknowledging the connection between ISI and extremist networks, this is possibly for the first time in recent times that the Defence Secretary has himself named the terrorist groups that have links with the ISI.

Meanwhile, an editorial in a leading Pakistan newspaper expressed its surprise that while immediate funds were needed to stop the Taliban from expanding its writ over new regions of the country, millions were being spent on a monument which marked hatred against India. According to The Daily Times, a whopping 2.5 billion rupees have been spent so far on a national monument, Bab-e-Pakistan while North West Frontier Province Chief Minister Ameer Haider Hoti is crying for funds to wage the war against the Taliban