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  • PAKISTAN: Recurring suicide bomb nightmare haunts Pakistan

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PAKISTAN: Recurring suicide bomb nightmare haunts Pakistan

Security personnel in Islamabad stand guard as workers clean up the damage done to the Red Mosque after rowdy protests. This comes as Pakistani authorities warn more suicide bombers are stalking the country's capital. Aabpara Market in Islamabad wore a deserted look on Saturday (July 28), a day after a suicide bomb attack in one of its restaurants killed 14 people, a majority of them police, and wounded more than 50 others. The market is barely 550 metres (600 yards) from the Red Mosque which had been the centre of a protest by Islamist radicals earlier in the day. Pakistani authorities also warned on Saturday more suicide bombers were stalking Islamabad. Pakistani security forces stormed the Red Mosque compound on July 10 following a week-long siege after supporters of radical clerics there refused to surrender. The government said 102 people were killed in the assault on the compound, the base for a Taliban-style movement. After the battle the authorities closed off the bullet-riddled and explosion-scorched complex and renovated it before formally reopening it for Friday prayers. The reopening had been seen as a government move to cool anger over the siege and assault, but protesting Islamists spoiled government plans for the resumption of religious activities at the mosque complex by rowdy protests. Chanting slogans of "Musharraf is a killer" and " blood will spark revolution", hundreds of bearded protesters stormed out of the mosque after prayers. They threw rocks at police and uprooted signboards on the roadside. They splashed red paint on the newly-painted facade of the mosque. Police used teargas to disperse the crowd and then closed the mosque. On Saturday all roads leading to the mosque were blocked as dozens of workers cleaned up the damage done by protesters. The only extra police evident on Saturday were stationed around the now "indefinitely closed" Red Mosque, or Lal Masjid.

ITN Source | July 28, 2007Watch more videos from ITN Source

Tags:. .seen. .cool. .hundreds. .stormed. .done











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