A soldier of Pakistan's paramilitary force stands guard at a checkpoint in Islamabad, Pakistan, on Thursday, Oct. 2, 2008. The U.N. ordered children of its international staff to leave the Pakistani capital and other areas it considered unsafe, raising its security level following the bombing of the Marriott Hotel, the world body said Thursday.
Pakistan is under intense U.S. pressure to combat militants responsible for rising attacks at home and in neighboring Afghanistan. Its faltering efforts so far have been met with a blur of suicide bombings that have killed nearly 1,200 people since July 2007, according to army statistics released this week.
The U.N., which employs more than 2,000 people in Pakistan, including about 100 foreigners, has not been hit.
However, the truck bombing of Islamabad's Marriott Hotel last month, which killed 54 people, including three Americans and the Czech ambassador, prompted the world body as well as foreign missions to review security.
Britain announced Wednesday it was repatriating its diplomats' children, and other countries may follow suit. Pakistan has long been a non-family posting for U.S. diplomatic staff.
Under the new directive, U.N. expatriate staff will no longer be allowed to live with their children in Islamabad, the neighboring city of Rawalpindi or in Quetta, on the Afghan frontier. Much of the border region, including the city of Peshawar, is already off-limits for U.N. families.
Until a spate of suicide attacks this year, Islamabad, a leafy city of spacious villas at the foot of the Himalayas, had long been considered a safe and comfortable home for its expatriate community. Its wide, tree-lined streets and pollution-free skies contrast with other teeming cities in Pakistan.
But in the face of the rising violence, extra checkpoints have sprung up across the capital and paramilitary troops glower over the top of machine guns at the entrance to the diplomatic quarter, where many foreigners live and work.
The precautions have made parts of the city resemble the Afghan capital, Kabul, which like trouble spots including parts of Somalia and southern Nigeria, are non-family postings for U.N. international staff.
Baghdad and Khartoum are the only other capitals where the U.N. is on a higher security level, said Amena Kamaal, a U.N. spokeswoman in Islamabad.
About 20 families with children are affected by the order, and Kamaal said some can relocate to areas deemed safer, such as Lahore or Karachi.
Karachi, considered Pakistan's most violent, crime-infested city, was the site of the 2001 abduction and killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Suicide bombers targeting former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto killed about 150 people there in October 2007. Lahore has seen two major suicide bombings this year.
Other families are expected to leave Pakistan altogether, which could disrupt U.N. operations as the country faces severe economic difficulties and a deterioration of basic public services in militancy torn areas.
A U.N. spokesman in New York, Farhan Haq, said the decision to relocate children was temporary. "All essential staff will remain on duty, and all U.N. work will proceed as normal," Haq said. "The United Nations intends to return to regular staffing levels as soon as conditions allow."
Luc Chauvin, deputy representative in Pakistan for UNICEF, said seven of its 33 international staff members would have to relocate or send children away. He said UNICEF was buying laptops and installing Internet connections in staffers' homes to enable them to work without coming into the office — a potential target for attack.
Khalif Bile, country representative for the World Health Organization, said the effect on its activities would be "insignificant." WHO works with the government on a campaign to eradicate polio that has been opposed by Islamic hard-liners.
Pakistani officials have blamed the Sept. 20 Marriott blast on extremists holed up in tribal areas along the Afghan border. Other attacks in Islamabad include a car bombing claimed by al-Qaida that killed six people outside the Danish Embassy in June. A blast in March killed a Turkish aid worker and wounded 12 people, including four FBI agents.
Underlining Pakistan's crumbling security situation, a suicide bomber blew himself up Thursday outside the home of a prominent anti-Taliban politician, killing four people in the northwestern city of Charsadda.
Asfandyar Wali Khan, whose party competes with Islamists for the loyalties of the region's ethnic Pashtuns, was receiving guests to mark the end of the Islamic fasting month when the attack occurred. The bomber was wearing a bulletproof vest and police gunfire failed to stop him, Wali said.
"When he got close to me, my bodyguard overpowered him and threw him on the ground and that was when the blast happened," said Wali, who escaped without injury.
Charsadda lies near the tribal region of Bajur, where troops have been battling militants for more than two months. Police official Fazl Rabi said security forces killed at least 27 militants in clashes near Bajur's main town of Khar Thursday.
No comments :
Post a Comment