Source/Credit: Reuters | World News
By Reuters | March 31, 2011
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A prominent Pakistani Islamist politician narrowly escaped an apparent assassination attempt Thursday when a bomb exploded near his car in the country's volatile northwest, killing at least nine people, police and aides said.
Several people accompanying cleric Fazlur-Rehman, head of the Jamiat-e-ulema-e-Islam (JUI) party, as well as policemen, were wounded in the attack in the town of Charsadda, but Rehman was reported to be safe.
"The bomb exploded just when Maulana (cleric) Fazl-ur-Rehman's vehicle passed that area. He was on his way to attend a public meeting. He is safe and sound," Abdul Jalil Jan, a JUI leader told Reuters by telephone.
Ajmal Khan Naimat, a top government official in Charsadda, said nine people were killed and Rehman was apparently the target.
"Yes, Maulana was the target of the attack. We don't know why is he being targeted," Rehman's aide Jan said.
It was second such attack on a JUI meeting in as many days. Twelve people were killed in a suicide attack at a JUI meeting in the northwestern town of Peshawar shortly before Rehman arrived there.
Thursday's attack was the latest episode of political violence in Pakistan this year. In January, the governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer, was shot dead by a bodyguard for his opposition to the country's blasphemy law. In March 2, Pakistan's Minister of Minorities Shahbaz Bhatti, the only Christian minister, was assassinated.
Militants linked to al Qaeda and Taliban have waged a campaign of suicide attacks across Pakistan, mainly in the northwest bordering Afghanistan, in retaliation for government offensives against insurgent strongholds.
Rehman, a firebrand orator, is opposed to Pakistan's alliance with the United States in the fight against Islamist militants, but has also been wary of militant violence.
His party was part of the coalition government until December 2010, when it pulled out after Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani sacked two ministers, including one JUI member, for publicly trading accusations of corruption.
(Reporting by Izaz Mohmand and Kamran Haider; Writing by Zeeshan Haider; Editing by Rebecca Conway and Richard Borsuk)
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This man and his ilk have no one to blame but themselves. He and his ilk have been promoting hatred and persecution of the weak and helpless and marginalized - fanning the flames of sectarianism and murder nad mayhem agianst the minorities ..Christians, Hindus, Ahmadi Musdlims, Shia Muslims...sooner or later the flames had to reach them also...since they also belong to a sect! It is so sad. May God have mercy on us all. Amen!
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