Violence escalates:

Over 42 dead in NW Pakistan car bomb blast

PAKISTAN: A car bomb ripped through a crowded bazaar in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar on Friday leaving at least 10 people dead and around 50 wounded, police and local officials said.

The blast hit a shopping area close to the city’s main Khyber Bazaar and ambulances rushed to the scene, said local police official Asghar Hussain.

“At least 10 people were killed and around 50 wounded in the bomb blast,” local administration chief Sahibzada Mohammad Anis told reporters. “We have declared an emergency in the hospitals,” he added. “The bomb was planted in a car parked in the market,” said Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the minister for information in the North West Frontier Province government.

It was not immediately clear if it was a remote-controlled device or a suicide attack. “We are investigating whether it was a suicide blast or the device was planted in the vehicle,” the minister told reporters.

Peshawar is the main city in the northwest and has been a frequent target of militants linked to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, who are waging a violent insurgency against the Pakistani state.

On September 26 a car bomb killed six people on a road leading to the main army cantonment in Peshawar. Pakistan’s umbrella Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) organisation has threatened to unleash a wave of attacks on government targets to avenge the killing of their leader Baitullah Mehsud in a US drone attack. Pakistan, on the frontline of the United States’ war on Al-Qaeda, has been hit by a wave of bombings that have killed more than 2,100 people across the nuclear-armed country. AFP