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Alert

Video stores bombed following militant group's threat to attack Internet cafes, newspapers covering women's issues

(PPF/IFEX) - Two video shops were destroyed and 10 others were damaged when a bomb exploded in a compact disk market in the city of Charsadda, located in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP) on 26 June 2007.

On 24 June, Mishal Khan, the president of the Muttahida Shopkeepers Association of Charsadda, received a threatening letter from a previously unknown organization, Tanzim Taliban, that set a seven day deadline for those involved in "adultery, running net cafés and newspaper owners publishing editions on women" to stop their "un-Islamic" activities or they would be subjected to suicide attacks. The letter also asked him to convey their message to the media persons to stop publishing "immoral pictures" in newspapers.

Also on 24 June, another video shop in Bilitang town in NWFP was bombed. Traders in Biltang held a strike to protest against the blast and demanded the administration provide security to businessmen. Press reports said the police had asked the merchants to arrange for their own security and to "try to switch over to other businesses". Police blamed the local Taliban for the blast and said they were trying to track down the perpetrators.