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Pakistan army to go after Taliban chief
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-06-15 09:59

Pakistan's decision comes as public opinion has shifted against the Taliban, who have been blamed or have claimed responsibility for a series of bloody attacks in recent weeks, including one that killed a prominent anti-Taliban cleric and another that devastated a luxury hotel in Peshawar.

On Sunday, a bomb rocked a market in the northwestern town of Dera Ismail Khan, while officials said clashes between the Taliban and security forces killed at least 20 militants in a tribal area supposedly cleared of insurgents months ago.

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Government official Inayat Ullah said 11 to 13 pounds (5 to 6 kilograms) of explosives were planted in a fruit vendor's hand-pulled cart in the market. Police official Mohammad Iqbal put the death toll at nine, with 20 wounded.

At a hospital where some of the wounded were taken, cries punctured the air.

"It was crowded there when something big exploded," said 30-year-old Ilyas Ahmad, whose legs were wounded. "It was a big noise. Everybody was crying. Bodies were lying there. People were lying around blood."

A Taliban commander, Qari Hussain Ahmad, blamed the blast on Pakistani intelligence agencies, saying the government was carrying out such acts to legitimize an operation in Waziristan.

"They want to malign us. They want to use killings of innocent citizens against us," Hussain said by phone from an undisclosed location.

Fighting on multiple fronts could tax the army's ability to hold regions once it says it has cleared them. The latest clashes in the Bajur tribal region underscored that.

Bajur was the main theater of operations against the militants before Swat. After some six months of fighting, the army said in February that the Taliban there had been defeated. But there have been occasional reports since then of ongoing militant activity.

Pakistani forces used jets, helicopters and artillery to pound suspected Taliban hide-outs in Bajur over the weekend.

Zakir Hussain Afridi, the top government official for Bajur, said the fighting was in the Charmang valley, a stretch he described as largely under Taliban control. Jamil Khan, his deputy, put the militant death toll at 20 since Friday.

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