Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, who had claimed responsibility for the attack on the police academy, which killed at least 12 people, has vowed more assaults unless the US shelves the drone-fired missiles.

His deputy Hakimullah Mehsud said the Pakistani Taliban carried out Saturday’s suicide attack against the paramilitary camp in Islamabad. He, too, cited the missile strikes, and promised that the group would carry out two suicide attacks per week in Pakistan.

He also said Pakistani troops should withdraw from parts of the northwest.

“We have shown enough restraint,” Hakimullah Mehsud said. “Previously, we were striking once in three months, but from now onward we will go for at least two suicide attacks a week.”

Most of the militant attacks in Pakistan occur in the northwest, where the Taliban and al-Qaida have strongholds from which they plan strikes on US and NATO forces across the border in Afghanistan. Still, all of the country’s major cities have experienced assaults.

Speaking on the behalf of the shadowy militant organization Fedayeen al-Islam, a man named Umar Farooq said via telephone that the group staged Sunday’s attack on the mosque as part of a “campaign against infidels.”

He also warned the US to stop its drone-fired missile strikes on militant targets in Pakistan’s northwest.

Little is known of the group, but it is believed to be linked to the Pakistani Taliban.

In the past it has said it was behind other attacks, including the bombing of Islamabad’s Marriott Hotel and last week’s attack on a police academy in Lahore, but officials have never named it as a primary suspect.

A suicide bombing at a crowded Shiite mosque south of Pakistan’s capital killed 22 people on Sunday, the latest evidence of how security in the US-allied nation is crumbling well beyond the Afghan border region, where al-Qaida and Taliban fighters thrive.

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