Bomb kills one and injures three

A powerful bomb exploded outside the home of a senior security official in central Pakistan today, killing one person and wounding three others, police and doctors said.

Nobody immediately claimed responsibility for the blast outside the home of Ghani-ur-Rahman, the commander of Frontier Constabulary in Dera Ismail Khan, 180 miles south-west of Pakistan’s capital of Islamabad.

It was not immediately clear whether Rahman was at home when the explosion occurred, but police said he was not among the injured.

Two security guards and a passerby were injured, and a clerk at a government office, who was crossing the road outside Rahman’s residence when the bomb detonated, was killed.

Dera Ismil Khan, in eastern Punjab province, is not far from a tribal region where Pakistani security and intelligence officials suspect Taliban and al-Qaida fugitives might be hiding.