BOMB KILLS INSAID IN MOSQUE IN PAKISTAN,WHY THIS KILLING?

A bomb blast killed around 40 worshippers attending Friday prayers at a mosque in a remote area of northwest Pakistan, a senior official in the area told Reuters. "The death toll is 40. We have no idea as yet how many have been wounded," said Atif-ur-Rehman, the senior-most government administrator in the Upper Dir district of North West Frontier Province. Earlier on Friday, police arrested suicide bombers in Islamabad and nearby Rawalpindi, Pakistan's interior minister said, as US special envoy Richard Holbrooke consulted the country's leaders on what needs to be done once the army wipes out the Taliban in Swat valley. Roadblocks have multiplied in recent days in both the capital and Rawalpindi, where the army is headquartered, over fears of attacks in retaliation against the Swat offensive. The military says more than 1,200 militants and 90 soldiers have been killed since the army swung into action in late April, while the militants have carried out bomb attacks in Lahore, and the northwestern cities of Peshawar and Dera Ismail Khan. Western allies, worried the nuclear-armed country was sliding into chaos, have welcomed Pakistan's show of steel and the army action has received wide support from major political parties, the public and media. "The people of Swat have realized that the entire misery which we are facing today, it is because of the Taliban, because of the terrorists, who are not only enemies of the country but enemies of Islam," Interior Minister Rehman Malik said. He told journalists that suspected bombers were caught in Islamabad and Rawalpindi with suicide jackets, but did not say how many. The News daily reported that four men were being held. The minister did not link the arrests to Holbrooke's visit, but there was no escaping the insecurity haunting Pakistan.