Tirah Bazaar blast: Suicide attack targets Orakzai-bound bus

Eighteen die in the third attack in Kohat district this year.

PESHAWAR:

At least 18 people were killed and another 32 injured when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a bus stand in Kohat district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, police said.

The attack comes two days after a twin suicide attack killed more than 40 and injured scores in the Mohmand tribal region. The insurgency-torn parts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa are already on high alert due to threats of attacks during the month of Muharram, which started on Wednesday.

Kohat District Police Chief Dilawar Bangash confirmed that it was a suicide attack and had killed 18 people. He said that the target was an Orakzai Agency-bound passenger bus.

Provincial Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain also told reporters in Peshawar that 18 people had died and 32 were injured in the attack, adding that the attacker was 14 years old.

Locals said that the attack happened in Tirah Bazaar area of Kohat district in a bus stand as passengers boarded buses leaving for Orakzai Agency.  The force of the blast also damaged seven vehicles at the stand.

A police official said that the blast took place at around 1pm in the Tirah Bazaar bus stand, near a Hiace vehicle bearing the registration number C-2068. The bus was bound for Arakhel area of the Lower Orakzai Agency. The official said that the blast completely destroyed the vehicle and also damaged six other vehicles parked nearby.

A local told The Express Tribune that that body parts and debris of the vehicles littered the scene.

The injured were rushed to the Liaqat Memorial Hospital and Kohat Development Authority (KDA) Hospital in Kohat and heavy contingents of police also rushed to the spot and cordoned off the site for traffic.

Akbar Khan, an official from the Bomb Disposal Unit (BDU), said that at least 10 kilogrammes of high-intensity explosives and pellets were used in the attack. Investigators have retrieved the head and legs of the suicide bomber from the spot and sent to Peshawar for forensic examinations. Kohat city police have registered a case of the attack.

This is the third attack this year in Kohat district. Earlier, in September, an attack on police colony had killed more than 20 people, while in March, a twin suicide attack in Kacha Pakka Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camp had killed around 50.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 9th, 2010.