By Gul Yusufzai
QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Suicide bombers targeting a paramilitary brigadier killed at least 20 people in the Pakistani city of Quetta Wednesday, apparently to avenge the capture of an al Qaeda leader, a security official said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility but Pakistan's Taliban, who are close to al Qaeda, often stage such attacks in their campaign against the U.S.-allied government.
Al Qaeda has been weakened by the killing of Osama bin Laden by U.S. special forces in Pakistan in May, and other setbacks including Pakistan's capture of Younis al-Mauritani in an operation announced Monday, analysts say.
He has been described as a senior al Qaeda leader who was plotting attacks against American and other Western targets.
The paramilitary Frontier Corps was involved in Mauritani's capture in the southwestern city of Quetta, along with the military's spy agency.
"This (Wednesday's) attack has all the hallmarks of the Taliban. It seems to be revenge for the arrest of al-Mauritani," said a senior security official.
The White House hailed Pakistan's capture of Mauritani as an example of counter-terrorism cooperation, suggesting Washington and Islamabad had put behind them bitterness caused by the unilateral raid that killed bin Laden on May 2.
Rooting out militancy in Pakistan is far more difficult than capturing or killing high-profile al Qaeda leaders.
For one, the cash-strapped South Asian nation must create more jobs to prevent militant groups from recruiting young men who are frustrated with the state.
Intelligence officials put the death toll from Wednesday's attack at about 25. Sixty-one people were wounded.
The head of one of the suicide bombers had been found, and the features indicated he may have been from Afghanistan's Tajik ethnic group, said the senior security official.
One of the suicide bombers blew himself up in a vehicle packed with explosives near the car of the deputy head of the paramilitary Frontier Corps in Baluchistan, Farrukh Shehzad.
Shehzad was wounded and his wife was killed, police said.
The other suicide bomber struck inside his house. The dead included a colonel in Pakistan's paramilitary forces and seven of Shehzad's guards. The explosions brought down the walls of his house and nearby offices.
A man drenched in blood sat dazed beside the road next to the dead body of a baby, whose mother was also killed. Auto-rickshaws were ripped apart by the force of the blasts.
Although al Qaeda is believed to be reeling from bin Laden's death, the Pakistani Taliban are still highly effective despite the loss of an inspirational figure.
Pakistan's military has staged several major offensives against the Taliban which have been described as a success. But they have failed to contain the group.
Autonomy-seeking militants demanding a greater share of the profits from oil and other resources in the province of Baluchistan, of which Quetta is the capital, have also waged a low-level insurgency for decades.
Those fighters, who are not linked to the Taliban, attack infrastructure, including natural gas facilities, and the security forces.
(Additional reporting by Zeeshan Haider in Islamabad; Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Ed Lane)
