Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf yesterday ruled out
declaring an emergency amid a rising tide of militant attacks that
have killed more than 130 people this month, officials said.
Elections due by the end of this year are regarded as crucial to
Pakistan's future, and Musharraf assured newspaper editors that he
wouldn't respond to growing insecurity by calling a state of
emergency as "the solution lies in the democratic process".
"We are in direct confrontation with the extremist forces -
moderates versus extremists," the state news agency quoted him as
saying.
In the latest violence, 17 soldiers and as many militants were
killed in two ambushes in North Waziristan on the Afghan border, a
day after a suicide bomber killed 17 people in the capital,
Islamabad.
Violence has spiraled since government forces stormed
Islamabad's Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, compound last week, ending a
week-long siege. The government said 102 people were killed during
the entire operation to crush a militant movement led by rebel
clerics.
At the same time as militants are believed to be taking revenge
for the bloodbath in the capital, pro-Taliban fighters have
abandoned a 10-month-old peace pact in North Waziristan, a tribal
region regarded as a safe haven for Al-Qaida.
The surge in violence on the Pakistani side of the border comes
as Britain's parliament said there were worrying signs the Taliban
were growing stronger in Afghanistan.
The 17 soldiers were killed in an ambush while on patrol in the
Datta Khel area, 40 km west of the region's main town, Miranshah.
Around a dozen militants were killed in fighting that followed, a
military official said.
Separately, five militants were killed when they tried to ambush
a convoy east of Miranshah, he said.
Suicide bombers had already killed scores of police and soldiers
in attacks this month in the northwest.
Attacks in the Pakistani capital have been rare but the city
police chief told reporters after Tuesday night's suicide bomb
attack that he had information that several bombers had entered the
capital.
The attack targeted supporters of the country's suspended chief
justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry, who had been due to speak to lawyers at
a nearby courthouse later that evening.
Aside from the 17 killed, more than 60 people were wounded.
Many victims belonged to former prime minister Benazir Bhutto's
Pakistan People's Party. Speaking afterwards from self-exile in
London, Bhutto voiced fears that "hidden hands" were trying to
create a pretext for Musharraf to impose an emergency.
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(China Daily via agencies July 19, 2007)
