Suicide bomber kills Pakistani policeman

PAKISTAN: A suspected Al-Qaeda suicide bomber blew himself up at a checkpoint in a remote Pakistani town near the Afghan border, killing a policeman and injuring another, police said Monday.

The man, believed to be from Uzbekistan, was travelling in a taxi from the northwestern city of Peshawar to the town of Bannu late Sunday.

When police at the checkpoint flagged the cab to stop, he came out of the vehicle and fired pistol shots injuring a policeman, senior police officer Abid Ali said. Police, however, surrounded him and the militant detonated explosives strapped to his body, Ali told reporters.

A policeman, who had approached the militant, was fatally wounded in the blast, he added.

"The militant was a foreign terrorist," Ali said. "It appears that he wanted to blow himself up somewhere else in Bannu, he added. Police have detained the taxi driver - a Pakistani - who told interrogators that the Farsi-speaking man appeared to be Uzbeki.

Ali said police recovered militant literature in Russian and Persian languages and an audio cassette from his body. Pakistan's lawless northwestern tribal areas became a sanctuary for Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants who fled Afghanistan after US-led forces ousted the Taliban regime five years ago.

Pakistani forces have since launched a series of military operations in the region in which more than 1,000 militants and some 600 soldiers are said to have died.

ISLAMABAD, Monday, AFP.