Bombings Pakistan

At 7:59 p.m. on Aug. 4, thousands of feet above one of the world's most rugged borders, a Pakistani air force F-16 fighter plane opened fire on a Soviet SU-25 fighter-bomber that had penetrated Pakistani airspace. The encounter was brief: A single missile from the F-16 scored a direct hit. The Soviet plane, which Pakistan alleges was carrying cluster bombs meant for Pakistani villagers, crashed 15 miles inside Pakistan. The pilot, Col. Alexander V.

Suicide bomb attacks killed at least 17 people Friday at two security installations in and near the Pakistani city of Peshawar, including a devastating truck bomb at the provincial headquarters of the nation's intelligence agency, underscoring security forces' vulnerability as they struggle to clamp down on a resilient insurgency. The suicide truck bombing at the Inter-Services Intelligence complex that killed 10 people early Friday was the second militant strike on the country's premier spy agency this year.

Three separate bombings rocked Pakistan's eastern province of Punjab, killing one person and injuring dozens of others, some critically, authorities said. The first of the three occurred near Gujranwala, 120 miles southeast of Islamabad, the capital, when a bomb ripped away the rear portion of a passenger bus, leaving 25 people injured, four of them seriously.

A car bomb blast tore through a crowded market in a city near Peshawar today and killed 34 people, the third terrorist attack to strike the area in three days. The blast occurred in Charsadda, about 25 miles northeast of Peshawar. More than 50 people were injured in the suspected suicide bombing, said Charsadda police official Riaz Khan. As Pakistani troops continued to battle Taliban militants in the South Waziristan region along the Afghan border, authorities have failed to stem the tide of retaliatory violence that militants have inflicted on the country.

The most important development in international terrorism last year was a series of high-casualty bombings carried out by Afghan government agents against targets in Pakistan, the State Department said Monday. In its annual report on global terrorism, the State Department said the bombing campaign by Afghanistan's Soviet-trained intelligence service killed 234 people and wounded another 1,200 in Pakistan last year.

A powerful bomb Sunday shattered a bridge and killed four people shortly before Prime Minister was to cross it. Police said a delay aat home saved the leader from the assassination attempt. The government said the bombing, which also left three people wounded and two missing in ruble, was carried out by an ethnic part formerly allied with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The roar of the 10 a.m.

At least four explosions rocked downtown Islamabad today, police and witnesses said, with one blast near the U.S. Embassy and another outside an American cultural center. At least two people were wounded, police said. An Associated Press reporter saw a car burning outside the cultural center. Police said it was apparently a car bomb, and firefighters were working to put out the flames. The explosion near the embassy also was apparently a car bomb, police said. A U.N.

A bomb ripped through a passenger train in southern Pakistan, killing at least four people and wounding more than 40, police said. A second bomb in eastern Pakistan killed one and injured 13, authorities said. No one claimed responsibility for either bombing. The first bomb went off shortly after the train pulled out of the station in Hyderabad, about 100 miles northeast of the port city of Karachi. One train car was badly damaged, according to witnesses.

A powerful bomb placed in a crate of grapes ripped through a crowded market, killing 16 people and wounding more than 80 in Islamabad, Pakistan's capital, police said. The blast was the deadliest of 40 bombings that have rocked Pakistani cities this year. The government has blamed rival India for many of the previous attacks, and India has consistently denied any involvement.

Three bombs exploded in eastern Punjab province, killing a 4-year-old and injuring at least 24 other people, police said. Two bombs went off within minutes of each other at a bus stop in Lahore, the provincial capital. Fourteen people were hurt, the police said. The third bomb ripped through a crowded market in Muridke, about 18 miles to the northwest, killing one person and injuring 10 others. A 4-year-old boy lost both legs in the explosion and later died, doctors said.

A powerful car bomb blast at a movie house in the northwestern city of Peshawar killed six people Friday and injured 75, raising fears here that gains made by Pakistani troops against Taliban militants entrenched in the volatile Swat Valley will be answered with a wave of attacks in urban areas. The explosion outside the Tasveer Mahal cinema on one of Peshawar's most traffic-choked streets was the second in a week in the provincial capital. On Saturday, a car bomb killed 13 people.

A suicide bombing destroyed a mosque in Pakistan near the Afghan border Friday, killing at least 50 people and wounding more than 100, officials and witnesses said. Scores of people were missing in the rubble. The attack, near the town of Jamrud in the Khyber tribal area, came on the holiest day of the Muslim week, as the mosque was packed with worshipers. In the aftermath of the blast, prayer caps, cellphones and sandals lay scattered on the rocky ground.

In separate deadly attacks Monday, a suicide bomber killed the army's surgeon general and seven other people, and gunmen burst into the offices of a British-based aid group in northern Pakistan, shooting four local staffers to death and burning down their building.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said the U.S. threatened to bomb his country back to the Stone Age if he did not assist the administration's war on terrorism. The threat was delivered after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, by Richard L. Armitage, then deputy secretary of State, to Musharraf's intelligence director, the Pakistani leader told CBS' "60 Minutes" for Sunday's broadcast. Musharraf said the intelligence chief quoted Armitage as saying, "Be prepared to be bombed.

A bomb exploded Saturday as minority Shiite Muslims congregated at a shrine in a remote town in southwestern Pakistan. At least 27 people were killed and 18 wounded, police said. Thousands of worshipers were at the shrine of a Shiite saint near the town of Naseerabad, about 210 miles south of Quetta in restive Baluchistan province, when the bomb went off outside, said Mubarak Ali, a local police official.

Two Pakistani border guards were killed by a U.S. bomb Sunday after a joint operation in a violent and unsettled corner along the Afghan border unexpectedly erupted in gunfire between the allies, authorities said Tuesday. A U.S. military spokeswoman said that a U.S. F-16 fighter dropped the bomb after a Pakistani soldier opened fire on a U.S. patrol searching for Al Qaeda and Taliban remnants near the border town of Shkin, site of a Special Forces base and yards from the Pakistani border. U.S.

Opposition leader Nawaz Sharif accused Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto of failing to maintain law and order after a bomb blast in a bus killed at least 37 people in Punjab province on Sunday. Sharif also challenged Bhutto to name the "foreign elements" she blamed for the blast that occurred about 30 miles southwest of the provincial capital, Lahore, on the eve of the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha.

At least 10 people were killed and more than 30 were injured in three bomb blasts Thursday in Pakistan's Punjab province, the official APP news agency said. There was no immediate information on who planted the bombs.