Bomber kills more than 20 in volatile Pakistan region

The trio of blasts has taken at least 40 lives in North-West Frontier Province in four days, including a mayor who once backed the Taliban but later led a militia against them. He died Sunday after a suicide bomber blew himself up in a livestock market, where people were buying goats to sacrifice for the Eid holiday.

The latest bombings, all carried out against non-military targets, highlighted the continuing human cost of the government’s decision to launch a major army offensive against one of the Taliban’s main tribal sanctuaries. The violence has increasingly spilled into heavily populated areas.

Army officials say that the operation in the South Waziristan tribal area is going well and that it has strong support among the Pakistani public. But analysts said the militants’ aggressive new moves beyond tribal borders - especially against local officials who defy them - is opening a deadly new front in a war that could still lose crucial public support.

Regional leaders and analysts said they are worried that the government, by failing to follow up a series of army operations with rehabilitation aid and economic development, is opening the door for Taliban forces to return and regain influence over an impoverished tribal populace that has little loyalty to the state.

“It is not just a question of clearing out the militants,’’ said Aftab Khan Sherpao, a national legislator and former cabinet minister. “The whole fabric of society has collapsed in this region and it will take years to revive. Even if you weed out these people, the job has just started.’’

Sherpao and other politicians complained this week that they had seen little evidence of government rebuilding after earlier army operations that drove Taliban forces out of Swat and Bajaur, two districts that border the tribal belt. They said no officials had come to survey homes and shops demolished in the fighting, or compensate owners as promised.

“The army did its job. Now it’s time to reestablish the writ of the civil government,’’ Sherpao said, noting that the Taliban had appealed to landless tenant farmers and exploited their grievances against wealthy landlords.

The government has set aside about $200 million to rebuild the tribal areas, but regional leaders said that it is far too little and more help is needed from international donors. One legislator from Bajaur, who uses the single name Shaukatullah, said the most urgent need was jobs for unskilled young men who could be recruited by the Taliban.

“Terrorism is something new for us, and we don’t know how to tackle it,’’ he said. “But there is a vacuum that needs to be filled. We need education, health, and jobs.’’