Pak-ed With Questions, Part 4

Needless to say with the death of OBL, Pakistan Islamists are not happy.

Two American officials were saved by their armored vehicle Friday when it was hit by a bomb in the northwestern city of Peshawar, in an apparent revenge attack for the killing of Osama bin Laden.


It was the first assault on American interests in Pakistan since the May 2nd U.S. special forces operation that found and killed bin Laden in a town in the north of the country.

The two U.S. government employees were on their way from home to work at the U.S. Consulate in Peshawar, at about 8:30 a.m., when the bomb exploded. There were different accounts on whether the bomb was carried on a motorbike, in a parked car or planted on the road, said U.S. embassy spokesman Alberto Rodriguez.

“The folks in the car saw a motorcycle drive up and then boom. But maybe this guy (on the bike) was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” said Rodriguez. “Right now, it’s not clear if the bomb was in a vehicle, on a body, or planted.”

I'm honestly surprised it took them this long to start going after American civilian personnel in Pakistan, but there's going to be a lot more of this, I should think.  I wouldn't exactly count on the Pakistan government to be very forthcoming in additional information on militants, either.  We're effectively on our own there for now.  Officials in Punjab, Pakistan's largest province, have already canceled US foreign aid contracts in protest of the operation to get OBL in Abbotabad and are calling on the entire country to follow suit.

"We have canceled six MOUs (memorandums of understanding) with the United States in the fields of health, education and solid waste management," said Rana Sanaullah, Law Minister of Punjab, the country's most populated province and its political nerve center.

"We have conveyed their concerned departments about our decision. This is our protest against the Abbottabad incident."

The Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) opposition party, which rules Punjab, has called for a review of the country's ties with Washington, urging the central government to reduce reliance on foreign aid.

Considering there are plenty of folks in Congress who agree that Pakistan should be getting less or no foreign aid, I'm thinking that a lot of contracts could get "reviewed" to death in short order here.  Keep an eye on this.