Pakistan violence flares after Musharraf resigns

The two sides have differed over the mechanism of restoring the judges, especially the deposed Supreme Court chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.

The Pakistan Peoples Party, headed by Asif Ali Zardari has so far refused to say that all should be reinstated immediately.

But former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's party, Pakistan Muslim League-N, demanded Tuesday that Chaudhry and all others be "restored within the next 48 hours," said Farooq, the spokesman.

Taliban-backed insurgency
Sharif and senior party lieutenants abruptly left a meeting with Zardari on Tuesday without announcing any progress.

Musharraf's rivals won February parliamentary elections, largely sidelining him while clamoring for him to quit. They announced an impeachment campaign earlier this month, leading Musharraf to ultimately calculate that he could not remain in power.

One of the biggest challenges ahead is how to deal with an al-Qaida and Taliban-backed insurgency in Pakistan's volatile northwest as well as in neighboring Afghanistan.

200,000 displaced
A military operation against insurgents in the Bajur tribal region has reportedly killed hundreds and displaced more than 200,000 in recent weeks.

On Tuesday, police said security forces backed by helicopter gunships and artillery pounded targeted insurgents in Bajur, killing 11 suspected militants and five civilians over a 24-hour period.

Security forces stepped up the shelling after militants attacked a paramilitary post at Mamad Gatt near the Afghan border, said Fazal Rabbi, a local police commander. He said he did not know if any troops were killed.

Separately, government official Jamil Khan said 13 militants and five troops died Tuesday in a clash at a fort in the Nawagai area of Bajur.

Another 23 people were killed and 15 wounded in violence that officials said appeared to be sectarian — a bombing outside the emergency gate of a hospital in the northwest that was crowded with Shiite Muslim mourners.

The blast occurred amid an ongoing military offensive in a nearby tribal region that has left hundreds dead and spurred promises of militant revenge.

An Associated Press reporter at the scene of Dera Ismail Khan District Hospital saw 18 bodies on the ground. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the explosion.

"We are not sure whether it's a suicide blast," police inspector Salahuddin Kundi said.

The country's tribal regions along the Afghan border in particular are considered havens for Taliban and al-Qaida-linked insurgents, many of whom are believed involved in attacks on U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

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