March 12, 2008	Wednesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 3, 1429

ISLAMABAD, March 11: One of the parties slated to take joint control of the government said twin suicide attacks on Tuesday were a consequence of President Pervez Musharraf’s failed policies against militants.

Bombs hit a Federal Investigation Agency provincial headquarters and a private business in Lahore on Tuesday, killing at least 26 people and wounding more than 175. No one claimed responsibility.

Pakistan Muslim League-N spokesman Ahsan Iqbal condemned the attacks and blamed military operations ordered by Musharraf for destabilising regions near the border with Afghanistan.

“He has carried out indiscriminate operations in the tribal areas that have opened up new fault lines in Pakistani society,” Iqbal said.

Meanwhile, a Jamaat-i-Islami leader blamed Musharraf’s friendship with the United States for a campaign of attacks inside Pakistan.

“It started when we started having a friendship with America. There were no suicide bombings in this country before that,” said JI Secretary-General Syed Munawar Hasan.

“Unless there are whole domestic and foreign policy changes, I don’t think this (terrorism) is going to stop,” Hasan told Dawn News television. “Don’t divorce terrorism from politics.”

PML-N’s Iqbal reiterated his party’s demand that Musharraf step down.

“Unless he resigns, there will always be a cause for all these groups to carry on these activities,” he told Dawn News.

He said Pakistan needs to find political and economic solutions to combat militancy and that dialogue was needed with different groups to bring peace.

Carrying out military operations “only to appease foreign powers must stop,” Iqbal said. “The biggest hurdle in addressing this problem is the president himself.”

Iqbal said on Tuesday that lawmakers would draft a new counter-terrorism strategy.—AP