Suicide attack at Pak-Afghan border kills seven, injures 10

The border at Chaman has temporarily been closed for all kinds of traffic.

QUETTA: As many as seven people were killed, including an Afghan security guard and ten others, including four Frontier Corps (FC) members, sustained injuries in a suicide bomb blast in Chaman, Balochistan, on Thursday.

A suicide bomber wanted to enter the bordering town of Chaman through the ‘Friendship Gate’ at the Pak-Afghan border from Afghanistan when security forces, finding him suspicious, stopped him at the gate.

On being caught, the suicide bomber blew himself up killing seven people, including an Afghan security guard and three Pakistani and three Afghani civilians, and injuring 10 people including four personnel of Frontier Corps (FC) Balochistan.

The deceased and injured were shifted to the hospital immediately after the blast and the border was closed for all goods, people and vehicles.

NATO supplies were also suspended due to the closure of the border. Sources said that the Afghani injured civilians were shifted to the bordering district of the Afghanistan Spin Boldak Hospital.

After the incident, FC cordoned off the area and security was tightened on both the sides of the border.

Last week, a suicide bomber had attacked a border crossing between Pakistan and Afghanistan on Friday, killing two people including a senior Afghan police commander near a customs gate.

In recent weeks, Taliban insurgents have accelerated their campaign of suicide attacks and roadside bombs in the region, as NATO’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014 draws closer.