The government said the attack in a high-security area where a police headquarters, emergency services building and a military intelligence office are located, was revenge for an offensive against the Taliban in the Swat valley, northwest of Islamabad.

The army moved against the militants in the Swat region late last month after the Taliban had seized a district only 100 km (60 miles) from the capital and a peace pact collapsed.

A militant commander loyal to Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud said the Lahore attack was to avenge the offensive in Swat.

"We have achieved our target. We were looking for this target for a long time. It was a reaction to the Swat operation," the commander, Hakimullah Mehsud, told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location.

Militant violence in nuclear-armed Pakistan has surged since mid-2007, with numerous attacks on the security forces, as well as on government and Western targets.

The violence and a perception the government was being distracted by political squabbling and failing to act to stop the Taliban had alarmed the United States and other Western allies.

Pakistan is vital for U.S. plans to defeat al Qaeda and cut support for the Afghan Taliban and the United States has been heartened by the Swat offensive and by public support for it.

"The response by the military so far has the support of the Pakistani people," White House National Security Adviser General James Jones said in Washington on Wednesday.

"The government’s popularity has shot up a little bit in the polls and that is going to have an effect in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan," he said.

"MAJOR ATTACKS"

But militant attacks in cities could undermine support for the offensive and Hakimullah Mehsud warned of more violence.

"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," he said.

The military released late on Wednesday what it said was a tape of an intercepted telephone call between the Taliban spokesman in Swat, Muslim Khan, and an unidentified militant in which Khan urges revenge attacks.

"There’s a need for them to strike soldiers in Punjab so that they can understand and feel pain," Khan says on the tape, broadcast on Pakistani television.

"Strikes should be carried out on their homes so their kids get killed and then they’ll realize," he said.

The unidentified man said militants had been ordered to strike wherever they could.

The government has vowed to defeat the Taliban and on Thursday it published an offer of a reward of 5 million rupees ($60,000) for the capture, dead or alive, of the Taliban leader in Swat, Fazlullah, and smaller bounties for 20 of his comrades.

Authorities have warned that militants might launch attacks in retaliation for the offensive in Swat, where the military says about 1,100 militants and about 60 soldiers have been killed. There has been no independent confirmation of those estimates.

Soldiers had made progress in securing Swat’s main town of Mingora, with a commander saying 70 percent of it had been cleared and the remainder would be secured in two or three days.

The offensive has sparked an exodus of 2.3 million people, according to provincial government figures, and the country faces a long-term humanitarian crisis which could also undermine public support for the fight against the Taliban.

But the securing of Mingora would raise the possibility of many of the displaced beginning to go home.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik said after the Lahore attack that the militants were on their last legs and getting desperate.

The car bomb brought down a government ambulance service building and damaged a nearby office of the military’s main Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency.

Two ISI officers and six other agency officials were among the dead and security officials said their office might have been the target.

Lahore is capital of Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous and prosperous province. The country’s second-biggest city is also traditionally home to top bureaucrats and senior military brass.

The city has seen several bomb attacks over the past couple of years, but it felt much safer than other parts of the country until March, when militants launched two brazen assaults.

Bombs in Pakistan’s Peshawar, several casualties

Mas Selamat Kastari was the alleged mastermind of a plot to hijack a plane and crash it into Singapore’s Changi Airport.

Singapore authorities have also accused him of planning several truck bomb attacks across the island state.

A Singapore government spokeswoman confirmed the arrest but gave no other details on where or when.

Officials said Mas Selamat was a leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, a pan-Asian radical Islamic group linked to al-Qaeda responsible for several bomb attacks across Southeast Asia, including the Bali bombings.

His escape from the Whitley Road Detention Center in February 2008 prompted a manhunt in Singapore and led to the sacking of several Singapore officials.

Singapore’s most-wanted militant arrested after escape

In interviews, several Taliban fighters based in the border region said preparations for the anticipated influx of American troops were already being made. A number of new, younger commanders have been preparing to step up a campaign of roadside bombings and suicide attacks to greet the Americans, the fighters said.

The refortified alliance was forged after the reclusive Afghan Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, sent emissaries to persuade Pakistani Taliban leaders to join forces and turn their attention to Afghanistan, Pakistani officials and Taliban members said.

The overture by Mullah Omar is an indication that with the prospect of an American buildup, the Taliban feel the need to strengthen their own forces in Afghanistan and to redirect their Pakistani allies toward blunting the new American push.

The Pakistani Taliban, an offspring of the Afghan Taliban, are led by veterans of the fighting in Afghanistan who come from the border regions. They have always supported the fight against foreign forces in Afghanistan by supplying fighters, training and logistical aid.

But in recent years the Pakistani Taliban have concentrated on battling the Pakistani government, extending a domain that has not only threatened Pakistan but has also provided an essential rear base for the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.

At the same time, American officials told The New York Times this week that Pakistan’s military intelligence agency continued to offer money, supplies and guidance to the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan as a proxy to help shape a friendly government there once American forces leave.

The new Taliban alliance has raised concern in Afghanistan, where NATO generals warn that the conflict will worsen this year. It has also generated anxiety in Pakistan, where officials fear that a united Taliban will be more dangerous, even if focused on Afghanistan, and draw more attacks inside Pakistan from United States drone aircraft.

“This may bring some respite for us from militants’ attacks, but what it may entail in terms of national security could be far more serious,” said one senior Pakistani official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not permitted to talk to news organizations. “This would mean more attacks inside our tribal areas, something we have been arguing against with the Americans.”

The Pakistani Taliban is dominated by three powerful commanders — Baitullah Mehsud, Hafiz Gul Bahadur and Maulavi Nazir — based in North and South Waziristan, the hub of insurgent activity in Pakistan’s tribal border regions, who have often clashed among themselves.

Mullah Omar dispatched a six-member team to Waziristan in late December and early January, several Taliban fighters said in interviews in Dera Ismail Khan, a town in North-West Frontier Province that is not far from South Waziristan. The Afghan Taliban delegation urged the Pakistani Taliban leaders to settle their internal differences, scale down their activities in Pakistan and help counter the planned increase of American forces in Afghanistan, the fighters said.

The three Pakistani Taliban leaders agreed. In February, they formed a united council, or shura, called the Council of United Mujahedeen. In a printed statement the leaders vowed to put aside their disputes and focus on fighting American-led forces in Afghanistan.

A spokesman for the Afghan Taliban, Zabiullah Mujahid, denied that the meetings ever took place or that any emissaries were sent by Mullah Omar. The Afghan Taliban routinely disavow any presence in Pakistan or connection to the Pakistani Taliban to emphasize that their movement is indigenous to Afghanistan. “We don’t like to be involved with them, as we have rejected all affiliation with Pakistani Taliban fighters,” Mr. Mujahid said. “We have sympathy for them as Muslims, but beside that, there is nothing else between us.”

Several Pakistani officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not permitted to talk to news organizations, confirmed the meetings. But they said that the overture might have been inspired by Sirajuddin Haqqani, an Afghan Taliban leader who swears allegiance to Mullah Omar but is largely independent in his operations.

Mr. Haqqani, and his father Jalaluddin Haqqani, the most powerful figures in Waziristan, are closely linked to Al Qaeda and to Pakistani intelligence, American officials say. From their base in North Waziristan, they have directed groups of fighters into eastern Afghanistan and increasingly in complex attacks on the Afghan capital, Kabul.

The Taliban fighters said the Afghan Taliban delegation was led by Mullah Abdullah Zakir, a commander from Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan, whose real name is reported to be Abdullah Ghulam Rasoul.

A front-line commander during the Taliban government, Mullah Zakir was captured in 2001 in northern Afghanistan and was detained at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, until his release in 2007, Afghan Taliban members contacted by telephone said.

The Pakistani fighters described Mullah Zakir as an impressive speaker and a trainer, and one said he was particularly energetic in working to unite the different Taliban groups. Beyond bolstering Taliban forces in Afghanistan, both the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban leaders had other reasons to unite, Pakistani officials said.

One motivation may have been to shift the focus of hostilities to Afghanistan in hopes of improving their own security in Waziristan, where more than 30 drone strikes in recent months have been directed at both Mr. Mehsud and Mr. Nazir. Two senior commanders of the Haqqani network have been killed.

The Pakistani Taliban leaders also rely on Mr. Haqqani and their affiliation with the Afghan mujahedeen for legitimacy, as well as the money and influence it brings.

In their written statement, decorated with crossed swords, the three Pakistani Taliban leaders reaffirmed their allegiance to Mullah Omar, as well as the leader of Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden.

The mujahedeen should unite as the “enemies” have united behind the leadership of President Obama, it said. “The mujahedeen should put aside their own differences for the sake of God, God’s happiness, for the strength of religion, and to bring dishonor on the infidels.” The Taliban fighters interviewed said that the top commanders removed a number of older commanders and appointed younger commanders who were good fighters to prepare for operations in Afghanistan in the coming weeks.

In confident spirits, the Taliban fighters predicted that 2009 was going to be a “very bloody” year.

Pakistani and Afghan Taliban Unify in Face of U.S. Influx – War News

The recording appeared Thursday on Web sites used by al-Qaida-linked militant groups.

The speaker says Somalis should fight and dethrone President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, who the recording claims is “paid by the enemies” of al-Qaida’s cause.

The 11.5-minute message was entitled “Fight On, Champions of Somalia” and included a picture of bin Laden with the audio.

President Sheikh Sharif is a moderate Islamist elected by lawmakers in January, after a peace deal between the previous government and Islamist opposition groups.

The new government plans to make Islamic law the basis of Somalia’s legal system, in an effort to appease hardline Islamists still fighting the government.

One Somali politician, Mohamed Amin Osman, told VOA that bin Laden’s alleged call to topple the president may anger many Somalis, who are tired of war.

Militant groups like al-Shabab control most of southern and central Somalia, after more than two years of fighting in the Horn of Africa country.

Al-Shabab has also rejected the new president, and continues to fight government forces and African Union peacekeepers.

The government controls only portions of the capital, Mogadishu.

Somalia has not had a stable central government since 1991, when a coup toppled President Mohamed Siad Barre.

New Bin Laden Tape Calls for Somali President’s Ouster