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Pakistan coalition rift widens as violence rages
2008-08-22
ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Pakistan's ruling coalition was riven by divisions despite crunch talks on Friday, raising fears for the government's ability to tackle Taliban bloodshed after a massive bombing killed 64 people. Former premier Nawaz Sharif pushed back his deadline for the coalition to restore judges sacked by former president Pervez Musharraf, prolonging the squabbles that have prevented it from focusing on the rising militant threat. Thursday's bombing at a huge arms factory was the second suicide attack since Musharraf stood down on Monday, intensifying the pressure on his opponents to show they can govern the world's only Islamic nuclear power. Troops killed 21 militants, including two more suicide bombers, in clashes near the Afghan border in defiance of threats by the Taliban to launch more attacks if military operations against the rebels are not halted. The two main parties -- linked to Sharif and the assassinated ex-prime minister Benazir Bhutto -- failed to find common ground during talks on Friday on how to replace Musharraf and how to reinstate dozens of judges he sacked. Sharif said a resolution to bring back the judges would be introduced in parliament on Monday and that there would then be two days of debates. "Wednesday should be the day for reinstatement of judges," Sharif told a joint news conference with the leaders of two smaller parties in the coalition who were mediating the dispute. But there was no immediate comment from Asif Ali Zardari, Bhutto's widower and the leader of her party. A resolution would need his support but he has shown no sign of keeping the pledge he made in May to restore the judges. Critics have suggested that Zardari is against the return of crusading chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry because he could overturn an amnesty on corruption charges that allowed Bhutto and Zardari to return from exile. Pakistan's election commission announced Friday that the presidential poll would be held on September 6, seen as an important step towards creating the political stability needed to take on the militants. Lawmakers from Zardari's party nominated him late Friday to stand for the post during a meeting of the grouping's central executive committee. "Zardari thanked Pakistan People's Party of which he is the co-chairman and said he will announce his decision within the next 24 hours," information minister Sherry Rehman told reporters in Islamabad. The coalition's feuding has worried Western nations looking for continuity after Musharraf's departure, and distracted the government's attention from the increasingly brazen militant insurgency. "Similar attacks will be carried out in other cities of Pakistan," said Maulvi Omar, a spokesman for Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, the umbrella group of the country's Taliban Islamist militants. He said Thursday's daring attack outside Pakistan's main defence industry factory, on the road from Islamabad to the northwestern border, was in response to military operations against the militants. Police said Friday they had arrested a suspect who was to have been the third bomber in Thursday's attack. Police also recovered a suicide jacket that the suspect had left in the toilet of a mosque close to the factory. In the latest violence, troops opened fire on a vehicle that refused to stop at a checkpoint in the northwestern town of Hangu, causing the vehicle to explode and killing 16 militants, an army statement said. Two were suicide bombers, probably foreign militants, it said. Another five militants were killed in the tribal region of Bajaur, bordering Afghanistan, where the government says that more than 500 people have been killed and 130,000 displaced in two weeks of fighting with militants. While there have been frequent allegations that at least parts of the nation's powerful intelligence service has helped support the militants, the military has also been waging a tough campaign against them. But the military campaign requires a level of political support that has been lacking because of the bickering between the parties. The possibility of a coalition split has worried the United States and other countries who want a stable Pakistan.
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