More deadly consequences of the siege of the Lal Masjid. “Deadly attack on Pakistani troops,” from the BBC (thanks to Davida):
Eight soldiers have been killed in a suicide attack on a military convoy in north-western Pakistan, the army says.
Fifteen others were hurt when the attacker struck the convoy near the village of Daznary, North Waziristan, with an explosives-laden vehicle.
Thousands of troops have been moved close to the region after the storming of Islamabad’s Red Mosque this week.
The army fears militants may be preparing a new “holy war” in response to the assault.
The 36-hour assault on the mosque left 75 people inside the building and 10 soldiers dead, officials say.
In the north-western city of Peshawar on Friday more than 1,000 demonstrators vowed to avenge the death of the mosque’s deputy leader, Abdul Rashid Ghazi….
Gen Arshad acknowledged the attack could be linked to the Red Mosque siege.
In a second attack on Saturday, two security officials were hurt in a blast near the town of Bannu in North-West Frontier Province.
Thousands of troops have been moved into the province as President Pervez Musharraf vows to pursue his campaign of rooting out extremists.
Although there is no new deployment to Waziristan, militants there say the government has broken peace agreements by setting up checkpoints.
Militant commander Abdullah Farhad told the Agence France-Presse news agency there could be “guerrilla war” if all checkpoints were not removed by Sunday.
Protests against the Red Mosque attack were held across the country on Friday.
Demonstrators in Peshawar were told it was a “genocide” in which “hundreds of innocent women and children died”.
In Islamabad, hundreds of demonstrators attended a rally organised by Pakistan’s main alliance of radical parties, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal.
“This carnage will prove to be the last nail in the coffin of Musharraf’s dictatorial rule in Pakistan,” the group’s deputy leader Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Hydri told the gathering.
“Now there will be Red Mosques everywhere in Pakistan.”