Suicide bomber kills at least 14 in Pakistan

**Nick Miles** (0:00)
This is The Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.
I'm Nick Miles, and in the early hours of Monday, the 3rd of August, these are our main stories. A deadly attack in Pakistan. We examine who's behind it and what it means for tensions in the wider region. Two people have been killed in Greece after helicopters tackling wildfires crashed into each other mid-air, and...

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For decades, Islamist groups have plagued parts of northwestern Pakistan, abducting civilians, attacking the authorities and destroying infrastructure. Those groups have coalesced into the Tariq-e-Taliban or Pakistani Taliban. It's that group that says it carried out a suicide bomb attack earlier on Sunday that killed at least 15 people in an area called the Swat Valley, north of the capital Islamabad. The attack took place as people were gathered to take part in an anti-militant peace rally. Mohammed Umar Khan is a local police officer.

**Mohammed Umar Khan** (1:43)
There was a protest going on at the center of Qabal. The town police station is located directly opposite from it. There were police lines. The suicide attack took place at the police station. The diseased and injured include police officials as well.

**Nick Miles** (1:59)
Our Global Affairs reporter, Amritsar Netirajan, tell me more about the Pakistani Taliban.

**Amritsar Netirajan** (2:04)
The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan is an alliance of various Islamist militant groups. And they have been operating in north-western part of Pakistan for a long time. They were driven out. Some of them were said to be inside neighboring Afghanistan. In fact, they share the same ideology as the Afghan Taliban who are currently in power. And several experts pointed out that the TTP, the Pakistani Taliban, helped the Afghan Taliban during the war against the western-backed government and before the Taliban ceased power in Kabul. And this has also led to tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan because Pakistan accuses the Taliban administration of providing safe haven to militants who are carrying out attacks on its security forces and civilian targets, an accusation strongly denied by the Afghan Taliban government.

**Nick Miles** (2:55)
And briefly, this group, their overall ideology is to overthrow the Pakistan government?

**Amritsar Netirajan** (3:00)
They want an Islamic governance in areas under the control and they were imposing strict controls like this when they were partly controlling this area in Swat Valley itself about 15 years ago. But there have been a number of social media messages about increasing attacks and there have been attacks on security forces not at the same level as in other parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. And that is why people got worried. That's why they were holding this peace rally. And when the final speaker was speaking, this blast took place in one corner. So it's not very clear they were targeting the police officers or the police station or the peace rally or anti-militant rally.
So among those dead were several civilians. And in fact, that is exactly the concern of the local people because this is a well-known tourist area. The speakers were talking about, we want to give education to our kids, we want to live a normal life and do our business. And they were criticising the government for not taking enough action.

**Nick Miles** (3:57)
And why is this militant group increasing its attacks right now?

**Amritsar Netirajan** (4:01)
They have been attacking for the past year or so on various targets. And the intensity of the attacks have increased. In fact, in the last few months, both sides have been using drones. And this also led to tensions between Islamabad and the Afghan Taliban. And Pakistan carried out several airstrikes and drone attacks on what it said were militant targets inside Afghanistan. The UN said that more than 500 people have been killed so far in these attacks. And again, Afghan Taliban also launched attacks on Pakistani forces. And this is the latest in a series of attacks.

**Nick Miles** (4:33)
From what you're saying, these attacks in and around the Swat Valley are making life extremely difficult for ordinary people there because the attacks aren't necessarily just affecting the military or the police.