Children hurt in Pakistan bus-bomb attack

A suicide bomber struck a bus carrying schoolchildren at a military base in northwestern Pakistan today, wounding at least five of the children, an army spokesman said.

The attack occurred at the army’s base at Kamra, and the wounded children were being transported to a hospital, Major General Arshad Waheed said.

“This barbaric attack shows how cruel the terrorists are,” he said, adding that the bus driver and a guard also were injured.

Pakistan has witnessed scores of terrorist attacks that have claimed hundreds of lives in the past few years.

The latest attack came a day after a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden car into a police outpost yesterday, killing four people and wounding several others, in Pakistan’s Swat valley, the site of a military operation against Islamic militants loyal to a fugitive cleric.

The attack occurred after the commander of military operations in Swat said his forces had cleared the valley of insurgents, a military spokesman said.

Militants this summer seized tracts of the area, a former tourist destination 100 miles from the capital, Islamabad.

On Saturday, the army announced that government troops had retaken all the towns seized by the militants, killing 290 of them and capturing 140.