Suicide blast kills 24 Pakistani soldiers

Islamabad, July 14 (UNI) Four days after 'Operation Silence' was launched to flush out Muslim radicals from the Lal Masjid, a suicide car bomber today rammed his vehicle into a paramilitary convoy killing 24 soldiers and wounding nearly 30 others, five of them critically, in the North Waziristan region of the Afghan border.

According to official sources, the car carrying explosive material hit a military vehicle this morning, killing 24 army personnel and injuring 30 others.

The convoy was moving from Razmak to Bannu in North West Frontier province when the attack happened.

The injured were shifted to CMH for treatment.

The attack is being seen as an effect of Tuesday's army assault on radical Red Mosque in Islamabad.

At least 75 followers of the Taliban-style movement, led by cleric brothers firebrand deputy administartor Abdul Rasheed Ghazi and Abdul Aziz, were killed while nine members of security forces were also killed and 29 wounded.

The Operation was termed ''naked agression'' by Ghazi, who also was killed in the crossfire between the military and the commandos.

At least 21 people died in the siege before the assault.

Ghazi, in his last telephone conversation, had 'warned' that people would not spare rulers and their families.

The Pakistan government during and after the Operation had apprehended suicide bombings in some of its volatile regions.

Last Sunday, three Chinese workers were reportedly shot dead in Peshawar, an attack which police said appeared to be linked to the events in Lal Masjid.

Many of the students and hardliners, who made the Red Mosque complex their second home, were believed to have been from the Northwest region.

North Waziristan is considered the a hot bed of Al Qaeda and the Taliban from where Afghanistan is targeted.

UNI