PARACHINAR: A roadside bomb killed ten people and wounded four in a tribal region on the Afghan border on Thursday, a government official said, as militants linked to al-Qaeda launched a new wave of attacks.
The explosion happened in Palaseen village, about 65 kilometres northeast of the Kurram region’s main town, Parachinar.
“It was a remote-controlled bomb, which was detonated as soon as a passenger van got there,” said Hamid Khan, deputy administrator of the region. All those killed were civilians.
About 150 people have been killed in the last week as militants have renewed their attacks, ending a brief lull in violence amid the worst flooding in the country’s history.
The Taliban have threatened to carry out more suicide attacks on government targets in response to US drone strikes in Pakistan’s lawless regions in the northwest. In the last 24 hours, four drone attacks have killed 19 militants. There was no independent confirmation and militants often dispute government accounts.
Blast in Quetta
Elsewhere in the country, a bomb exploded inside the house of a government minister on Thursday, killing two people, police said.
“The bomb was placed inside the guest room but thank God, most of the guests had gone out,” city police chief Abid Notkani told a news agency, adding that Balochistan’s finance minister, Asim Kurd, was unhurt. Balochistan, the country’s largest but least populated province, has for decades been home to a low-level insurgency by nationalists demanding more autonomy and a bigger share of income from the province’s natural resources.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 10th, 2010.
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