13 injured: IED attacks in Mansehra, Mohmand leave 3 dead

Army, Frontier Corps and a polio team are targeted.

SHABQADAR/ LANDI KOTAL/ MANSEHRA:

Three men were killed while more than a dozen suffered injuries in three different IED attacks in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and a tribal agency on Saturday.

The first of these incidents took place at around 8:45 am near Khanpur village some 18 km from Mansehra on Karakorum Highway when a military truck leading a convoy was hit by an IED hidden under the sacks of manure.

As a result, three military cops got injured while the truck was damaged; however, military personnel travelling by other vehicles escaped unhurt, eyewitnesses said.

The police said the rescue workers and military officials moved the injured to CMH Abbottabad, where one of the injured was reported to be in precarious condition.

However, the real damage was caused by the second IED that went off on the opposite side of the road at the same point at 9:30 am, killing a passerby while injuring four others, including two media persons.

“Terrorists used 4.5 kg and 3 kg of explosive material separately in the two IEDs,” District Police Officer Khurum Rasheed told reporters.

After the twin blasts, the security agencies and police cordoned off the area, suspending traffic on the KKH. The police reportedly arrested a suspect in injured condition and shifted him to unknown place for interrogation, sources added.

Meanwhile, a Khasadar official and a civilian were killed and six people injured in two separate IED blasts in Mohmand Agency.

According to Upper Mohmand’s political administration official Jamshed Khan, an IED went off in Safi Tehsil of Mohmand Agency when the FC bomb disposal unit was on patrol to clear the road.

As a result of the explosion, one FC operative and two civilians got injured. They were shifted to CMH Peshawar, where one civilian Rahim Gul succumbed to his wounds.

Later on at about 9:30 am another IED detonated near a polio vaccination team in the same locality of Safi. The blast resulted in the death of a Khasadar man, Hussain Khan, while a polio vaccinator and three other Khasadar personnel sustained injuries. The injured were shifted to hospital. TTP Mohmand Agency has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Meanwhile, three mortar shells landed in Loye Shilam area of Landi Kotal tehsil of Khyber Agency.

Political administration’s spokesperson Khan Pasand said all the three shells were fired from an undisclosed location. “No human loss is reported in the incident,” he said, adding that the officials of the political administration were probing the incident.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 15^th, 2014.