ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN — A suicide bomber bearing a box of sweets managed to penetrate one of the most heavily secured police enclaves here Thursday, wrecking a residential building that housed anti-terrorism police and injuring half a dozen officers.
Elsewhere in Pakistan, 10 people were killed when a roadside bomb, apparently planted by insurgents, hit a police bus transporting prisoners, and airstrikes by suspected U.S. unmanned aircraft killed at least nine people near the Afghan border.
By the standard of recent attacks in the country, the toll in the police barracks bombing in the capital was light: The bomber was the only fatality. But the bold strike against such a well-fortified target was seen as an emphatic show of defiance by Islamic militants.
The box of sweets, delivered just before the blast, contained a note demanding an end to military offensives in the tribal lands along the Afghan border where Al Qaeda and Taliban militants have found sanctuary, intelligence officials said. The note was written in Pashto, the language spoken in the tribal areas.
Police were trying to find out how a civilian car managed to drive unchallenged more than half a mile inside the compound, which contains numerous checkpoints. The driver apparently set off the explosives moments after delivering the sweets.
The attack, which sheared the corner walls off the three-story brick barracks deep inside the sprawling police compound, was symbolic not only in location but also in timing. It occurred as Pakistani lawmakers were receiving a second day of closed-door briefings from senior military officials about the government's confrontation with insurgents.
Among the senior officials appearing before lawmakers were army chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani and Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the incoming head of the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence, the main spy agency.
One reason there were so few casualties in the bombing was that nearly all the anti-terrorism police had been deployed throughout the capital to guard against attacks during the parliamentary session. The city was on extremely high alert, with many major streets cordoned off and blast barriers erected in front of government buildings.
Some analysts saw the special parliamentary session as the first real effort by the new government to try to formulate a coherent strategy for confronting the insurgents. The militants have not only staged a campaign of suicide attacks in Pakistan, but they also have sent fighters to attack Western troops in Afghanistan.
