Pak Islamist blames US for suicide blast

An Islamist politician whose party lost several members in a suicide attack blamed Pakistan's alliance with the US for the violence and urged Islamabad yesterday to break ranks in the war on terror.
The comments showed the depth of anti-Americanism in Pakistan, whose support Washington considers key to stabilizing neighbouring Afghanistan. In the past three days, attacks in Pakistan have killed some 74 people, signalling a potential new wave of violence.
The Jamaat-e-Islami party was hit Monday when a suicide bomber apparently targeted police watching over a rally of the pro-Taliban group. Many of the 24 dead and 45 wounded were party loyalists, while two were officers, police official Khan Abbas said Tuesday.
Although authorities blamed the Taliban in the immediate aftermath of the attack in Peshawar, the Islamist party's leaders have declined to do so, instead alleging that the CIA or Indian intelligence were behind it.
"It is because we have brought America's war to our own country," Sirajul Haq, a provincial party leader, said Tuesday in Peshawar after attending funerals for some of the victims. "Still, there is time to end this alliance with America" to avoid more bloodshed.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but that is not unusual in cases where many ordinary Pakistanis die.
Earlier Monday, a bomb exploded outside a school run by a police welfare foundation, killing a young boy and wounding 10 people. And over the weekend, multiple bombs in the Kohat region elsewhere in the northwest killed nearly 50 people.