Suicide bomber kills three in Jamrud

Taliban claim responsibility for the attack outside tehsil office

PESHAWAR/ JAMRUD:

A suicide bomber detonated the explosives strapped to his body outside a local administration office in Jamrud tehsil of Khyber Agency Tuesday morning, killing himself and three others, including a tribal policeman. The outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the bombing outside the Jamrud Tehsil Office that also injured 55 people — among them 13 Khasadars, members of the local tribal police.

“I was exiting the Tehsil Office around 9am when a young man bumped into my vehicle and a huge explosion followed,” Haji Tehsinullah Afridi, a Khasadar line officer who was also injured in the blast, told The Express Tribune from his hospital bed. “My guards were critically injured,” he added.

A Khasadar official, who was standing guard at the Tehsil Office gate, said that he and his fellow guards had spotted a suspicious young man loitering around the building since 8am. “The young man tried to enter the compound twice but we returned him,” he added.

An official of the local political administration said more than 50 people, including women and children, were injured in the attack who were driven to the Jamrud tehsil hospital and to the Hayatabad Medical Complex in nearby Peshawar.

Khyber Agency’s Political Agent Shahab Ali Shah confirmed the bombing and the casualties. He said Haji Tehsinullah Afridi could have been the target. “The attack was in retaliation to the ongoing operation against militants in Khyber Agency,” he added. “The operation will continue till the last militant is eliminated.”

Some political administration officials, however, claimed that the bomber wanted to target the polio vaccinators who were leaving the premises for a vaccination campaign in the region. “The bomber missed the target and instead hit their escort vehicle,” one official said.

It was the last day of the vaccination campaign during which around 1.7 million children were being inoculated against polio and measles, the official said, adding the health workers were being provided security by the political administration.

“This is something we need to focus on since polio teams have been attacked in the past too but luckily this time, they escaped unhurt,” said the official requesting anonymity. Additional Political Agent Khyber Agency Sardar Haroon, while talking to The Express Tribune, did not rule out the possibility.

Hospital sources identified the dead as Khasadar officials Imran Afridi, Zahir Akbar and a civilian, Rahat Sher. Medics said that five of the injured have life-threatening wounds. Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Governor Sardar Mehtab Ahmad Khan and local lawmaker Alhaj Shahjee Gul Afridi visited the blast victims in the hospitals where they offered monetary compensation for the dead and the injured.

Another political administration official claimed that after the suicide bombing local tribesmen spotted an explosive device weighing three kilos in a waiting room near the Jamrud Tehsil Office which was subsequently defused by the Bomb Disposal Squad.

TTP’s central spokesperson Muhammad Khurasani claimed responsibility for the deadly bombing in an email sent to media persons in Peshawar. He claimed that the bomber was tasked to target the assistant political agent of Jamrud, tribal elders and Khasadars who were implementing the National Action Plan against terrorism.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 2^nd, 2015.