Twin explosions struck a paramilitary training center in northwestern Pakistan on Friday, killing at least 69 people, in what the Pakistani Taliban described as its “first revenge” for the killing of Usama bin Laden.
The group threatened bigger attacks to come, in a statement shortly after the explosions. The blasts targeted newly trained recruits about to be bussed home on leave in Pakistan’s Charsadda district, near the Afghan border.
A suicide bomber detonated at least one of the blasts at the main gate of the facility for the Frontier Constabulary, a poorly equipped but front-line force in Pakistan’s battle against Al Qaeda and allied Islamist groups close to the Afghan border. Like other branches of Pakistan security forces, it has received U.S. funding.
More than 100 people were wounded, and nearly all the victims were recruits.
“This was the first revenge for Usama’s martyrdom. Wait for bigger attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan,” Pakistani Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan told AFP by telephone from an undisclosed location.
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