Suicide attack on Pakistan minister foiled

Police disrupted a plan to assassinate a regional education minister in north-west Pakistan today when they engaged four militants in a gun battle that ended with a teenage suicide bomber blowing himself up.

An informant tipped off officers that insurgents had gathered in a government high school in North West Frontier province and were planning to kill Education Minister Sardar Hussain Babak and attack government installations and security forces, a police spokesman said.