Terrorists Raise the Stakes in Pakistan
Recent attacks suggest a response by terror groups to Pakistan's crackdown.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, March 31, 2009 — -- The leader of the Taliban in Pakistan took responsibility today for planning Monday's attack on police recruits in Lahore, promising also to attack the United States.
It is unusual for Baitullah Mehsud, who has also been linked to the 2007 assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, to take credit for terrorist attacks and many experts doubted whether he alone was responsible for an attack hundreds of miles away from his base of operations.
But in phone calls to reporters, Mehsud claimed his fighters attacked the police academy near the Indian border, as well as a police station in Islamabad last week, in retaliation for a campaign of CIA drone attacks in Waziristan, a mountainous region of northwest Pakistan, that have increasingly targeted Mehsud.
"Soon we will launch an attack in Washington that will amaze everyone in the world," Mehsud told The Associated Press by phone.
He has made similar claims to want to attack the United States in the past.
Monday's attack on the police academy occurred in Lahore, the heart of the Punjab province, where militant groups have operated distinctly from a Pakistani Taliban that operate along the Afghan border. In Punjab, groups such as Lashkar-e-Jungvi, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad have received various levels of support from the Pakistani military and have been known to nurture international terrorists, including those who attacked London in 2005 and Mumbai in 2008.
