ISLAMABAD - The suicide bombing Friday which killed at least 50 people in Pakistan is the latest in a series of attacks which have increased sharply since July, when the military stormed the Islamist-occupied Red Mosque in the capital Islamabad.
The mounting unrest has involved both suicide bombings and offensives by the security forces against Islamist militants, particularly in the northwestern regions adjoining Afghanistan.
Major attacks during the period:
July 14: Twenty-four people die in a suicide attack on a military convoy near the Afghan border.
July 15: Suicide attacks kill at least 47 people in northwest Pakistan, including 26 at a police recruitment centre.
July 17: Seventeen people die in a suicide attack on a political rally in Islamabad.
July 19: Three suicide attacks kill more than 50 people. The deadliest targets Chinese workers in southwestern Pakistan, but kills only locals.
July 27: Fifteen die in a suicide attack during protests sparked by the re-opening of the Red Mosque.
September 4: Two suicide attackers kill at least 25 people near military headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi.
September 11: A suicide bomber blows himself up inside a minibus in northwest Pakistan: 17 dead.
September 13: Twenty members of an elite anti-terrorist unit die in a suicide bombing at a base in the northwest.
October 1: A suicide bomber disguised in a woman's burqa kills at least 16 people at a police checkpoint in northwestern Pakistan.
October 18: Bomb attacks targeting former premier Benazir Bhutto kill at least 139 people in Karachi, just hours after she returns to Pakistan for the first time in eight years.
October 25: Thirty people, most of them paramilitary soldiers, die in a bomb attack in Swat Valley, northwestern Pakistan.
November 24: At least 20 people die in suicide attacks against security forces in Rawalpindi, near Islamabad.
December 17: Twelve members of an army football team die in a suicide attack in North West Frontier Province.
December 21: At least 50 are killed in an attack on a mosque in the northwest of the country. The attack is aimed at, but does not hit, a top former anti-terrorism official who was already targeted by a deadly bombing in April.
12/21/2007 10:17 GMT