Photo: AFP Click to enlargeISLAMABAD (AFP) - A suicide bomber killed up to eight paramilitary police at a tented camp in Pakistan's capital late Saturday, the second such attack in Islamabad in less than two weeks, officials said. It was the latest in a wave of bomb attacks that have killed more than 1,700 people in the nuclear-armed key US ally since government forces fought gunmen holed up in a radical Islamabad mosque in July 2007. The violence underscores the enormity of the challenge facing the United States, which has unveiled a sweeping new strategy to defeat Islamist militants in south Asia, putting Pakistan at the heart of the fight against Al-Qaeda. "It was 7:38-7:39pm (1438 GMT) when a suicide bomber entered from the back of the camp and exploded himself. This is Frontier Constabulary (FC) camp number seven," said Binia Amin, operations police chief
in the capital. Police put up search lights as they collected evidence from the camp, encircled by barbed wire, in the pitch black. The cloth had been stripped off one tent, leaving ISLAMABAD (AFP) - A suicide bomber killed up to eight paramilitary police at a tented camp in Pakistan's capital late Saturday, the second such attack in Islamabad in less than two weeks, officials said. It was the latest in a wave of bomb attacks that have killed more than 1,700 people in the nuclear-armed key US ally since government forces fought gunmen holed up in a radical Islamabad mosque in July 2007. The violence underscores the enormity of the challenge facing the United States, which has unveiled a sweeping new strategy to defeat Islamist militants in south Asia, putting Pakistan at the heart of the fight against Al-Qaeda. "It was 7:38-7:39pm (1438 GMT) when a suicide bomber entered from the back of the camp and exploded himself. This is Frontier Constabulary (FC) camp number seven," said Binia Amin, operations police chief in the capital. Police put up search lights as they collected evidence from the camp, encircled by barbed wire, in the pitch black. The cloth had been stripped off one tent, leaving just the wooden bamboo frame still standing and only the rag of a grey shirt remained clinging to a makeshift clothes line after the explosion, said an AFP reporter. "There are eight dead now," Amin told reporters, revising up an earlier death toll of up to six. Asked if all eight belonged to the Frontier Constabulary he said: "Yes." Four other people were wounded and 32 FC men were present in the camp at the time of the attack, the police official said. The FC, part of Pakistan's paramilitary force, deploy outside diplomatic missions and protect VIP homes. A local Islamabad administration official confirmed the casualty numbers and said it seemed as though there was a lone attacker, adding that two severed legs had been recovered at the site -- presumably those of the bomber. "The death toll is eight and four injured," Islamabad Deputy Commissioner Asad Ullah Faiz told reporters. "We are taking measures to prevent such attacks but suicide attacks are such a curse. We can minimise them but cannot eradicate them," he said. The camp was in an upmarket residential district close to some of the capital's most prestigious addresses. Gunfire rattled out across the capital after the blast and officials said FC officers opened fire as the bomber detonated his explosives. AFP reporters saw a man in sky blue traditional Pakistani shalwar kameez run across the road away from the bomb site and towards a popular market, before he was captured and handed over to police. It was the second deadly bombing in Islamabad in less than two weeks. On March 23, a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a special police office, killing a guard and wounding three other people on a public holiday. That attack was claimed by Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, who has a five-million-dollar US bounty on his head, who this week vowed further attacks to avenge suspected US missile strikes against militants in Pakistan. A suspected such strike killed 13 people, including militants, in the semi-autonomous tribal area of North Waziristan, a known hotbed of Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants, on Saturday, security officials said. Mehsud is Pakistan's most-wanted militant and heads the much-feared Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). The former government in Islamabad accused him of masterminding the 2007 assassination of ex-premier Benazir Bhutto. Much of the violence in Pakistan has been concentrated in the northwest of the country, where the army has been fighting Taliban hardliners and Al-Qaeda extremists after the 2001 US-led invasion of
