It was the second attack on security forces in NWFP on Saturday. Two security officials were wounded in an earlier blast near the town of Bannu. "We can't say for sure but it could be a reaction to that," military spokesman Major-General Waheed Arshad said of the North Waziristan blast when asked if it might be linked to the mosque assault.
Nearly 50 people have been killed in bomb attacks targeting troops and police in the NWFP since July 3, when security forces in Islamabad surrounded the Lal Masjid complex, following clashes with gunmen based there. At least one wanted militant, speaking before commandos stormed the mosque, had threatened to launch revenge attacks if the mosque was assaulted.
Many of the militants who turned the mosque-school complex into a virtual fortress, and many of the religious students, who studied there, were believed to have been from the NWFP. It was the most serious attack on security forces since November when a suicide bomber killed 42 army recruits on a training ground in Dargai.
In a separate incident on Saturday, authorities in Peshawar discovered two anti-tank mines hooked up to a timer in a car abandoned on a main city street. It was safely dismantled. The government has sent extra troops to at least four different parts of the NWFP, a provincial official said.