Blast at theater kills 6, puts Pakistan on edge

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A car bombing at a movie theater in the northwest city of Peshawar killed six people and injured 75 others Friday, raising fears that gains made by Pakistani troops against Taliban militants in the Swat Valley will be answered with a wave of bombings in urban areas.

The explosion outside Tasveer Mahal Cinema on one of Peshawar's most traffic-choked streets was the second in a week in the provincial capital. Last Saturday, a car bombing in Peshawar killed 13 people.

Militants have targeted movie theaters in the region in the past, charging that the businesses violated the tenets of Islam. Pakistan's Dawn Television reported that some theaters in the area recently received threats from the Taliban, and that a few theater owners have shut down.

The Pakistani army's offensive in the Swat Valley and surrounding northwest regions, meanwhile, appears to be gaining support from many citizens wearied by the Taliban insurgency and its spread beyond tribal areas that border Afghanistan. That public support has been buoyed by advances the Pakistani military says it has made on Taliban strongholds in recent days.

Military officials said they have cleared the Buner and Lower Dir regions of Taliban fighters, and have encircled Swat's main city, Mingora, where Taliban militants remain. The army also has started destroying concrete bunkers and networks of tunnels that Taliban militants had built in towns and villages they used as bases, military officials said.

And the takeover of the highest Taliban stronghold in the Swat Valley by troops who stormed up its jagged, rubble-strewn slopes is evidence of success in Pakistan's month-old army offensive.

It has been difficult to verify the accounts of the Pakistani military, since roads leading to the heart of the fighting have been blocked. On Friday, the military allowed a small group of journalists limited access to the area.

Increasingly, Pakistanis worry that the offensive may trigger retaliatory attacks from the Taliban, including suicide bombings and car bombings in Pakistan's largest cities.

"Such incidents will increase ... if the government does not stop the operation in Swat and change its policy," said Mohammed Iqbal, a Peshawar political activist.

Support for the offensive also is tempered by the country's burgeoning humanitarian crisis, fueled by the exodus of nearly 2 million people fleeing the Swat Valley fighting. Many of the fleeing Pakistanis sought refuge with relatives or friends, but more than 160,000 have jammed into tent camps outside the northwest cities of Mardan and Peshawar and on the outskirts of Islamabad. Pakistanis escaping the conflict are also appearing in larger numbers in cities as far away as the southern port of Karachi and Lahore, near the border with India.

Amid sweltering temperatures, overwhelmed aid workers are struggling to supply adequate amounts of food and health care to the throngs at the camps. The United Nations has appealed to the international community for $543 million in emergency relief for displaced Pakistanis.

The Obama administration has declared eliminating militant havens in Pakistan vital to its goals of defeating al-Qaida and winning the war in neighboring Afghanistan. U.S military officers said insurgents use Pakistan as a base to launch attacks over the frontier in Afghanistan.

But Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Schloesser, the top U.S. general in eastern Afghanistan, said there was evidence that insurgents were crossing into Pakistan, possibly to join the fight in Swat and other regions of the northwest where militants are holed up.

His comments come amid concern in Washington and Islamabad that the buildup of 21,000 additional U.S. forces in Afghanistan may end up pushing Taliban militants into Pakistan, further destabilizing its border region.

Material from The Associated Press and The New York Times is included in this report.