Two major bombings have shaken Pakistan’s Punjab province over the past two days as the Taliban strikes back against Pakistan’s ongoing campaign to extricate its northernmost province from the terrorists’ grip.

On Thursday, a series of bombings killed 10 and injured 50 at a crowded marketplace and police checkpoint in the city of Peshawar along the Afghan border. Two of the assailants were apprehended and two killed by Pakistani police in an ensuing firefight. 11 others were killed Thursday in an evening attack in the city of Dera Ismail Khan in Western Pakistan. Just a day earlier, 30 people were killed and more than 250 wounded in a car bombing in the city of Lahore, seen as a liberal and cultural center. The attack in Lahore has worried some Pakistani officials who see the terrorist attack in Pakistan’s second largest city as an escalation of the Taliban’s attempts to destabilize the government.

The Pakistani Taliban has claimed responsibility for both attacks, saying they were a direct response to Pakistan’s military offensive in the Swat Valley. Speaking through a lieutenant, Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud told the international press earlier today that his organization plans to carry out more bombings as part of a choreographed response to the Swat campaign. In an interview with Reuters (via The New York Times), the lieutenant warned, “We want the people of Lahore, Rawalpindi, Islamabad and Multan to leave those cities, as we plan major attacks against government facilities in coming days and weeks.”

The Pakistani government says it is not shaken by the attacks and sees them as an act of desperation on the part of a defeated Taliban. In a statement released after the attacks in Peshawar, Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani said, “such cowardly acts could not weaken the Government’s resolve to stamp out terrorism.” Since the offensive started last month, Pakistan has reported massive success in clearing the Swat Valley of militant forces. Pakistani forces have cleared 70 percent of the city of Mingora, the largest city in the Taliban-controlled Swat Valley, and have reportedly killed 1,100 militants in the month long campaign.

Despite Pakistan’s success in the Swat Valley, the attacks heighten concerns in the international community about Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. Satellite imagery released by the Institute for Science and International Security indicate that Pakistan has been working to grow its nuclear capabilities to compete in an arms race with India that The Wall Street Journal likens to the Cold War. Increased weapons activity, especially in a country with a government as threatened as Pakistan’s, could leave nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorist organizations. Although Pakistan has assured the US that its nuclear arsenal is secure from the terrorist threat, US defense officials have acknowledged that contingency plans are in place to safeguard weapon caches at risk of attack.

photo credit: Al Jazeera English’s Flickr photostream (creative commons)