Reporting from Rawalpindi, Pakistan - In a daring midday raid that showed insurgents' ability to strike the Pakistani military virtually at will, militants Friday stormed a Rawalpindi mosque filled with military officers and their children, killing at least 37 people with a deadly combination of gunfire, grenades and suicide bomb blasts.
The attack, which also injured at least 86 people, was the latest in a series of devastating terrorist strikes meant as retaliation for the Pakistani military's assault on Taliban strongholds in South Waziristan and other tribal areas along the nation's border with Afghanistan.
The dead included 27 civilians, 17 of them children, said army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas.
The government asserts that it has uprooted Taliban fighters from most of South Waziristan, but military commanders acknowledge that troops have killed only about 600 of the estimated 10,000 militants based in the largely.
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