ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN — In a devastating strike that signals that this week's departure of President Pervez Musharraf will bring no letup in their bloody campaign, Islamic militants took aim Thursday at a highly symbolic target: Pakistan's main weapons-building complex.
At least 60 people were killed and about 100 injured when a pair of suicide bombers blew themselves up at the gates of the sprawling munitions complex at Wah cantonment, about 30 miles northwest of Pakistan's capital, Islamabad. It was midafternoon; most of those wounded or killed were workers finishing a shift at one of the many factories within, or arriving for the next.
The message was unmistakable: no quarter for Pakistan's new civilian government, at least not as long as it moves to confront insurgents on their home turf in Pakistan's wild tribal borderlands.
That could bode ill for a national leadership already beset by internal and external problems.
Officials said they believed the attackers had hoped to penetrate the heavily fortified complex, which had been considered by security forces to be virtually impregnable. Had the suicide bombers been able to force their way inside and set off any of the vast stockpiles of explosives and ordnance, the level of death and damage would have been far greater.
Even though the apparent plan may not have succeeded, it was nonetheless a powerful blow against Pakistan's military and arms industry, explicitly warning civilians associated with weapons production that as far as the militants are concerned, they are combatants like any soldier.
Pakistan's Taliban movement claimed responsibility for the blasts, pressing its demand that government forces halt an offensive in the largely lawless regions abutting Afghanistan. For more than a week, helicopter gunships have been blasting suspected militant hide-outs in the Bajaur tribal agency, a mountainous redoubt where both Taliban and Al Qaeda figures are thought to shelter.
The attack showed that even with the exit of longtime U.S. ally Musharraf, who resigned Monday rather than face impeachment proceedings, Pakistan still faces a lethally determined insurgency.
And like militants across the border in Afghanistan, Pakistan's Taliban fighters appear to have become better organized and armed and capable of wreaking more havoc with large-scale attacks on major government and military installations.
