Washington, May 13(ANI): Although the Pakistani Taliban have claimed responsibility for Friday's bomb attack in northwest Pakistan, saying it was to avenge Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden's killing, local police doubt that the Taliban was directly involved in the blasts, or that revenge was the main motive.
Bin Laden, who had evaded capture for a decade, was killed on May 2 in a top-secret operation involving a small team of US Special Forces in Pakistan's Abbottabad city.
Over 80 people were killed and more than 100 others injured in two powerful blasts at the Frontier Corps Fort near Shabqadar in Charsadda- the deadliest attack since bin Laden's death. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the two suicide bombings and warned of bigger attacks in future.
But despite public anger over the United States' unilateral raid that killed bin Laden in his Abbottabad compound, the Taliban's purported revenge attacks do not appear to have resonated with Pakistanis, The Christian Science Monitor reports.
Local police told The New York Times that they doubt the Taliban is actually responsible for the attack, which they believe was a response to a Pakistani Army assault against Taliban militants in a nearby mountain region called Mohmand, and was carried out by a splinter group that has been fighting the Army in the region.
Sikandar Hayat Khan Sherpao, a member of the provincial assembly of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, said that the training facility has been a frequent target of militant attacks.
"I feel that this attack is not in retaliation to the Abbottabad incident. Basically, in the last one and a half months, a new military operation has been started in Mohmand as the army is going against militants," he said. "So this attack can be seen as a retaliation to the Mohmand operation."
The Washington Post said that a Taliban source, speaking on condition of anonymity, had disputed his organization's stated reason for the attack, saying that it was "intended to punish the military for the Mohmand offensive, not for bin Laden's killing."
The bombings took place in Shabqadar Tehsil in the Charsadda district in Pakistan's northwest, a tribal region that is difficult for Pakistan to control and has become a haven for militant groups.
According to the Washington Post, US Special Forces were involved in training the paramilitary forces at the facility.
Pakistani militant groups are vocally opposed to the cooperation between the US and the Pakistani government and security forces, and they frequently target security installations. (ANI)
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