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Three US soldiers were among 10 people killed when a bomb blast hit a convoy near a school in north-west Pakistan. Three schoolgirls were among the dead while 70 people, including another 63 schoolgirls and two US soldiers, were injured in the explosion in Lower Dir. The US embassy said the military personnel had been training Pakistan’s Frontier Corps in counter-insurgency. Marco Werman talks with the BBC’s Mark Dummet in Islamabad. Download MP3
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MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman and this is The World a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH/Boston. The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad today confirmed what’s believed to be the first killing of American military personnel in Pakistan. Three U.S. servicemen died when Taliban militants detonated a roadside bomb. This attack occurred outside a girls’ school close to the Afghan border. Four girls were among the dead. An American Embassy spokesman says the soldiers had been due to attend the opening of the school. The BBC’s Mark Dummet is in Islamabad. Mark, tell us what happened here.
MARK DUMMET: Well, this bomb went off as a convoy carrying the U.S. personnel, three of whom as you say, were killed. Two others injured and other vehicles carrying journalists and Pakistani security officials were going past this school. The explosion was detonated by remote control. The blast was pretty huge not only hitting the vehicles, but also causing extensive damage to the school, injuring dozens of school girls as well as, as you said, Marco, killing at least four of them.
The Taliban have said that they were behind the bombing that they were indeed targeting the Americans who they claimed were working a private security firm, Blackwater, rather than the Army. As you may know, here in Pakistan there are lots of conspiracy theories that, in fact, it’s Blackwater, which has been behind some of the suicide bombings here. Which, of course, they completely deny and the Embassy here completely denies. And the government here, of course, says that that’s complete nonsense, it’s the Taliban doing these attacks. But this is a case really of the Taliban stirring things up, and their propaganda machine swinging into action.
WERMAN: What is the U.S. Military doing in Pakistan?
DUMMET: Well, they’re doing many things. It’s not widely advertised because the American presence or role in Pakistan is deeply unpopular. But these personnel were involved in training, training the Frontier Corp., which is the Pakistani paramilitary force which is responsible for security along the frontier with Afghanistan. It is open knowledge, if not widely advertised, that the American military is here in a training capacity. There’s a lot of speculation of covert operations as well but, of course, that’s all covert and nobody is going to tell us that that’s happening. That remains just speculation.
WERMAN: You said, Mark, that the Americans were targeted in this incident. But it’s hard to imagine this is a coincidence happening at the opening of a girls’ school. The Taliban’s attitude to women and girl’s education is well known. What’s been happening to women in girls’ schools in these contested areas over the past year?
DUMMET: Clearly this is sort of a double target, as it were. I mean, this is an area where this attack took place, it’s an area called Lower Dir, which is close to the Swat Valley. Which is this part in the north of the country, which the Taliban by about March of last year had basically taken full control of. In so doing, they blew up dozens of girls’ schools. They are completely opposed to any sort of formal or secular girls’ education, and then after March the Pakistani Army moved in and pushed the Taliban right out. Having done so, money has come in from America amongst others to rebuild these schools.
WERMAN: So Mark, you’re in the capital Islamabad where President Asif Ali Zardari is pro American and not very popular. What is the attitude on the street there to this kind of attack on school girls?
DUMMET: Definitely most Pakistanis, the overwhelming majority of Pakistanis are completely horrified and shocked by the Taliban’s campaign, particularly those incidents which end up harming civilians be they the attacks on the schools, suicide bombings in busy markets. These attacks, you know, disgust most Pakistanis. And in a way what that’s done, the effect that these attacks have had is that they have turned Pakistani public opinion which had previously been quite ambivalent towards the Taliban saying this is a problem for the Americans only, a problem in Afghanistan and not really their problem.
WERMAN: The BBC’s Mark Dummet in Islamabad. Thank you very much.
DUMMET: You’re welcome.
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