Pakistan suicide blast kills at least 21
PAKISTAN: A suicide bomber killed at least 21 policemen in
Pakistan’s northwestern tribal region on Thursday, after a US strike
from a drone aircraft killed eight Taliban militants, officials said.
The suicide attack took place in the Khyber tribal region near the
Afghan border just as the policemen were gathering to break their
Ramadan fast.
“It was a suicide attack, which killed at least 21 policemen and
wounded 15 others,” top local administration official Tariq Hayat told
AFP.
He said the attacker blew himself up in the police barracks in the
border town of Torkham.
A senior administration official, Rehan Gul Khattak, told AFP: “The
authorities have found the head of the bomber at the site.”
A local administration official, Naeem Afridi, said he feared the
death toll would rise. “Vehicles of the local administration are
shifting the injured and dead bodies to a local hospital,” he added.
The attack came hours after a US missile strike in the South
Waziristan tribal region killed eight militants.
The US strike “targeted a Taliban compound in Kaniguram village of
South Waziristan, killing eight militants and wounding six others,” a
senior security official told AFP.
Another official confirmed the casualties and said that the drone
fired two missiles.
“Militants were using the compound of local tribesman Azam Khan
Mehsud for their activities in the area,” he said.
“Nationalities of all the militants killed... were not immediately
known but some were Uzbek nationals.”
He added that the village contained hideouts belonging to fighters
loyal to slain Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed
in a US drone attack on August 5.
His death was confirmed by Taliban commanders on Tuesday.
The US military does not, as a rule, confirm drone attacks, but its
armed forces and the Central Intelligence Agency are the only forces
that deploy drones in the region.
More than 2,000 people have been killed in a series of bomb blasts
and suicide attacks in the country during the past two years. Peshawar,
Friday, AFP |