I have a Pakistani contact who has cast some doubt on elements of this story — more information as it comes available. But anyway, here is more evidence that suicide bombing is not just, as it is often represented, the last resort of the poor and outgunned. From the BBC, with thanks to Skeetstreet:
Two sisters suspected of training to be suicide bombers have been arrested from the northern Pakistani town of Swat, police say.
Police had been looking for them since June last year, officials said.
The women are related to a top militant who has been sentenced to death for his role in the bombing of two Shia mosques in Karachi last year.
These are the first ever arrests in Pakistan of women charged with being suicide bombers.
“It removes a major threat because such an unusual attack using female suicide bombers would have caused a lot of damage,” a senior unnamed Pakistani security official is quoted as saying by AFP.
“It would have set an example for others to follow.”
Radical influence
Their father Sher Mohammed Baloch told the BBC News website that his daughters had come under the influence of their uncle Gul Hasan, who is a senior member of an outlawed Sunni Muslim militant group, the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.