Pakistan: Bomber kills 7 near nuke-linked complex
The attack took place near the sprawling aeronautical complex in Kamra, around 30 miles from the capital, Islamabad, and is sure to raise renewed concerns about the safety of Pakistan's nuclear program.
The Kamra site is often mentioned by foreign military experts and researchers as a likely place to keep planes that can carry nuclear warheads. The army, which does not reveal where its nuclear weapons are stored, has denied that the facility is tied to the program.
The attacker was apparently riding a bicycle and detonated his explosives at a checkpoint on a road leading to the complex, police officer Akbar Abbas said, blaming the Taliban. The seven dead included two security troops, while 13 people were wounded.
"The attacker wanted to go inside. He exploded himself when officials wanted to search his body," Attock police chief Fakhar Sultan Raja told The Associated Press.
The attack is the latest in a wave of violence sweeping Pakistan as its army pushes forth with its offensive against Islamist militants in the northwestern tribal region of South Waziristan. More than 170 people have died in bombings and raids on Western and security-related targets in the past three weeks.
The complex at Kamra or its workers have been targeted at least once before. In December 2007, a suicide car bomber struck near a bus carrying children of Pakistan Air Force employees, wounding five of them.
Pakistan has long insisted its nuclear program is safe and secure, and has sought to protect it from from attack by militants by storing the warheads, detonators and missiles separately in facilities patrolled by elite troops.
But analysts are divided on how secure these weapons are. Some say the weapons are less secure than they were five years ago.
Security plans aside, much could depend on the Pakistani army and how vulnerable it is to infiltration by extremists, according to some observers. Analysts say one possible scenario that could endanger the program would involve militant sympathizers getting work as scientists at the facilities and passing information to extremists.
