'It's terrifying bomber was 14-year-old in school uniform'

An editorial in The News daily Friday said the strike by the 14-year-old bomber "is in many ways a terrifying event". "Some were only a few years older than the bomber - who, of course, belonged in school, and not on the streets clad in a suicide vest."

Over 20 people, mostly cadets, were killed Thursdy in the bombing at the Punjab Regiment Center in Mardan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

It said that the "use of teenagers so young in this fashion is obviously made to put security personnel off guard and catch them unawares. The tactic seems to have worked in Mardan, as it has in the past in other places".

"Few would suspect that children can be ruthless killers, able to inflict the kind of havoc we saw at the military centre. The militants seem recently to be extending this tactic."
On use of women suicide bombers by militants, the editorial said: "The problems that arise from a security perspective when women are used as bombers are many, given that social norms dictate they are not usually stopped or searched at check-posts where mostly only male personnel are present."

In December last year, a woman suicide bomber blew herself up near a World Food Programme distribution point at Khar in Bajaur tribal region, killing 47 people.

"The Mardan incident...indicates that the killers are as active as ever. The brief lull we had seen some months ago in the rate of the blasts and bombings everywhere in the country has not lasted.

"Indeed, the terrorists seem to have moved ahead of security personnel again, developing new means to elude detection. They also seem able to run training centres to recruit bombers without check."