Suicide bomber strikes suspected nuclear weapons site in Pakistan

Suicide bomber strikes suspected nuclear weapons site in Pakistan
By Saeed Shah | McClatchy Newspapers

ISLAMABAD — A suspected nuclear weapons site in Pakistan was hit by a suicide bomb attack, raising fears about the security of the nuclear arsenal, while two other terrorist blasts made it another bloody day in the country’s struggle against extremism.

Increasingly daring and sophisticated attacks by terrorists allied to al Qaida on some of Pakistan’s most sensitive and best protected installations have led to warnings that extremists could damage a nuclear facility or seize some nuclear material. The country’s nuclear sites are located mostly in the northwest of the country, close to the capital Islamabad, to keep them away from the border with arch-enemy India. However, that places them close to Pakistani Taliban extremists, who are massed in the northwest. Al Qaida has made clear its ambitions to get hold of a nuclear bomb or knowledge of nuclear technology. Several other sites associated with Pakistan’s nuclear weapons have previously been hit.

Pakistan is reeling from a wave of terrorist violence that’s coincided with the launch of a U.S.-backed ground operation by the military against the country’s al Qaida and Taliban heartland of South Waziristan, on the Afghan border.

Friday morning a suicide attacker struck a check post on the boundary of the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex, an Air Force base at Kamra, about 40 miles outside Islamabad, killing eight people, including two security personnel, and wounding a further 15.

"There were strict security arrangements, so he [the bomber] was intercepted at the first check post," local police chief Fakhar Sultan told reporters.

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