The Taleban claimed responsibility Saturday for recent suicide attacks in Pakistan, including the assassination of a leading moderate cleric and the bombing of a Peshawar hotel frequented by foreign aid workers. President Asif Ali Zardari addressed the nation and vowed to continue fighting the Taleban “until the end,” saying it was a fight for Pakistan's survival. Taleban militants have unleashed a battery of suicide attacks since Pakistan launched a major offensive in the volatile Swat Valley in the country's northwest over a month ago. Friday's bombing of the cleric, Sarfraz Naeemi, at his seminary in the eastern city of Lahore triggered a wave of public anger and revulsion. Thousands of people were expected to gather Saturday for his funeral in the country's cultural capital. Police said the bombing was a targeted assassination. The cleric had recently condemned suicide attacks as un-Islamic and denounced the Taleban as murderers and “a stigma on Islam.” He also threw his support behind the military operation in Swat. Four others died and three were wounded in the attack. In its aftermath, hundreds of outraged seminary students shouted “Down with the Taleban!” The seminary bombing was echoed within minutes at a mosque used by troops in the northwestern city of Nowshera, killing at least four and wounding 100. The attacks took the count of suicide bombings to five in eight days, including a huge blast at the luxury Pearl Continental Hotel in nearby Peshawar that killed 11 people, including UN workers. Taleban commander Saeed Hafiz claimed responsibility for the blasts at the seminary, hotel and in Nowshera on behalf of Tehrik-i-Taleban, the group headed by Pakistani Taleban chief Baitullah Mehsud, local media reported. Naeemi's son, Raghib, filed a criminal complaint Saturday accusing Mehsud of murder, conspiracy and terrorism, saying his father had been receiving threats for his outspoken views. “Baitullah Mehsud is responsible for planning and motivating the attack that killed my father,” police official Sohail Sukhera quoted the complaint as saying. In Washington, US defense officials said Friday that Pakistan was planning a new assault into the lawless tribal district of South Waziristan, where senior al-Qaida and Taliban leaders are believed to have strongholds. Pakistan has announced no such offensive but has shelled and dropped bombs on suspected militant strongholds in the region in recent days, saying it is responding to militant attacks. Expectations are high that a new offensive will be launched sooner or later, as the government faces pressure to back its claims that it will root out extremists nationwide. The US officials said the initial phases of the offensive had already begun, but offered no time frame. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the operation has not been announced. On Saturday, Pakistani jet fighters dropped bombs on suspected Taleban hideouts in three villages in South Waziristan, killing at least 41 insurgents and wounding many others, two local intelligence officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. The Swat campaign has received generally broad support from a Pakistani public that has started to openly denounce the militants after years of ambivalence. Military analysts say any fight in the Waziristan regions would have to be much tougher than the Swat operation because the Taleban are more entrenched and battle-hardened from fighting in Afghanistan. In the latest of a string of attacks in the northwest, a roadside bomb hit a prison van in Kohat town early Saturday, killing a passer-by and wounding 16 people, said police official Farid Khan.
