Anti-Taliban cleric killed in Pak attack

Maulana Sarfraz Naeemi,an outspoken critic of the Taliban who played a key role in bringing together clerics to issue a fatwa declaring suicide bombings as un-Islamic,was killed along with at least three others when a suicide attacker targeted the compound of the Jamia Naeemia organisation in Lahore.

The attack occurred after Friday prayers at Jamia Naeemia mosque. The teenaged bomber rushed through the crowd and barged into Naeemi’s office where he detonated his explosives.

Naeemi died while being taken to the hospital. His close aide Maulana Abdur Rehman was also killed. At least a dozen people were injured in the attack.

In Peshawar,car-borne militants sprayed the heavily-guarded house of Lt Gen Masood Aslam,the army commander heading the military offensive against Taliban,with gunfire,triggering a gunbattle that left two militants dead and two persons wounded,officials said.

In Nowshera,six persons were killed and 90 injured when a suicide bomber rammed his explosive-laden truck into a mosque in an army supply depot. Officials said most of the dead and injured were employees of the army supply depot.

Amid a string of attacks and suicide bombings,Pakistani troops stepped up their offensive in the northwestern tribal belt,with the Army saying 39 militants and 10 soldiers were killed in the battle in the Malakand division.

Residents of Lahore are now calling on the Government to eliminate the militants,who they blame for the string of recent attacks in the city.

“The Taliban are a group of terrorists and must be eliminated forthwith,” said Mohammad Fayyaz,a student of Jamia Naeema.