Suspected Pakistan/Taliban car bombing destroys internet cafe, and bus carrying handicapped children

Shall we hold our breath for the world condemnation of a car bombing of an Internet cafe that also killed handicapped children?

A car bomb destroyed an Internet cafe and tore through a bus carrying handicapped children in northwestern Pakistan on Saturday, killing at least 11 people and wounding at least 30, police said.

~~~

The car bomb devastated a street in the main northwestern city of Peshawar on Saturday afternoon as it was busy with shoppers and traffic.

Television images showed several vehicles burning fiercely, and a stricken white-and-green bus that had been dropping handicapped children at their homes around the city.

The eight students still on board were injured, one seriously, medics and police said. Four other children and seven adults were killed, and dozens more were injured, they said.

Safwat Ghayur, a senior police official, said one of a string of shops wrecked by the blast was an Internet cafe – a favorite target for violent Islamist extremists in Pakistan who consider the Web a source of moral corruption.

Ghayur said the cafe had received several threats and even been attacked recently by gunmen. He said police were holding suspects in the shooting, but refused to elaborate.

While no jihad movement is anxious to step forward to claim this debacle as their own, Pakistan officials are probing links to Baitullah Mehsud’s Taliban as retaliation for killings in SWAT.

In contrast, a US missile strike was reported to hit a Taliban training camp, killing 25, and Pakistan troops killed dozens of Taliban in another battlefront.