News

A suicide car bombing that killed 96 people on a volleyball field sent a bloody New Year''s warning to residents trying to resist the Talibanization of Pakistan''s northwestern region near the Afghan border.

The attack in Lakki Marwat city was one of the deadliest in recent Pakistani history. As local tribesmen prepared for funerals Saturday, rescuers were still searching for bodies trapped underneath rubble.

The suicide bomber detonated some 550 pounds (250 kilograms) of high-intensity explosives on the crowded field during a volleyball tournament held Friday near a meeting of anti-Taliban elders. The elders were probably the actual target, police said.

Lakki Marwat is near South Waziristan, a tribal region where the army has been battling the Pakistani Taliban since October.

The military operation was undertaken with the backing of the U.S., which is eager for Pakistan to free its tribal belt of militants believed to be involved in attacks on Western troops in Afghanistan. The offensive has provoked apparent reprisal attacks that had already killed more than 500 people in Pakistan before Friday''s blast.

Militants have struck all across the nuclear-armed, U.S.-allied country, and they appear increasingly willing to target groups beyond security forces. No group claimed responsibility for Friday''s blast, but that is not uncommon when many civilians are killed.

"The locality has been a hub of militants. Locals set up a militia and expelled the militants from this area. This attack seems to be reaction to their expulsion", local police Chief Ayub Khan told reporters.

In Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton condemned the attack.

"The United States will continue to stand with the people of Pakistan in their efforts to chart their own future free from fear and intimidation and will support their efforts to combat violent extremism and bolster democracy,'''' she said in a statement.

Across Pakistan''s northwest, where the police force is thin, underpaid and under-equipped, various tribes have taken security in their own hands over the past two years by setting up citizen militias to fend off the Taliban.

The government has encouraged such "lashkars", and in some areas they have proven key to reducing militant activity.

Still, tribal leaders who face off with the militants do so at high personal risk. Several suicide attacks have targeted meetings of anti-Taliban elders, and militants also often go after individuals. One reason militancy has spread in Pakistan''s semiautonomous tribal belt is because insurgents have slain dozens of tribal elders and filled a power vacuum.

Authorities said that about 300 people were on the field at the time of Friday''s blast and that security had been provided for the games and the tribal elders'' meeting.

Police official Tajammal Shah said Saturday that 88 people died and 50 were wounded. Eight children, six paramilitary troops and two police were among the dead, he said.

Omar Gull, 35, a wounded paramilitary soldier, said that the attacker drove recklessly into the crowd and that people were trying to figure out what was happening when the explosives detonated.

"It was then chaos", he said. "It was smoke, dust and cries".

The attack was the deadliest since a car bomb killed 112 people at a crowded market in Peshawar on Oct. 28.

Regional Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain reiterated the government''s resolve to target militants wherever they may be, saying, "We need to be more on the offensive to fight them".