At Least 13 Killed in Swat Valley Bombing

Dozens Wounded in Attack on Military Convoy

At least 13 people were killed and 41 others wounded today when a suicide bomber attacked a military convoy in Pakistan’s still-restive Swat Valley. Gunfire was also heard after the blast, though it is unclear if there were multiple attackers.

The blast destroyed several vehicles and did serious damage to a number of nearby shops, and left the streets of Mingora, Swat’s primary town, virtually deserted.

It is the second major attack in the Swat Valley this month. Earlier, a bomb hit a group of the paramilitary Frontier Corps, flattened an all-girls school and killed three US soldiers who were inexplicably at the site.

Pakistan invaded the valley in early 2009, displacing well over a million civilians into refugee camps around Peshawar. The offensive was aimed at a comparatively small local auxiliery of the Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), said to include no more than a few hundred dedicated members. Damage to the valley will take years to repair, and the TTP leaders largely escaped unharmed, and continues to launch intermittant attacks to this day.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.