Three killed in Pakistan truck blast
At least three people were killed when a pick-up truck laden with explosives attacked a police station in north west Pakistan today.
Police opened fire on the pick-up truck as it approached a checkpoint in front of a police station in Badh Ber near Peshawar, but the driver was able to detonate his explosives.
The attack, which damaged the station and destroyed a small mosque and a house nearby, killed three people and injured 20 others.
Local television footage showed rescue workers searching for survivors and police examining the deep crater caused by the explosion.
A government official said the death toll may rise as rescue workers continue their search through the debris.
“This is an obvious reaction to the operation in the tribal areas,” he said.
Suspected militants have killed more than 300 civilians and security personnel in the last month in an attempt to weaken Pakistan’s resolve to continue the military operation in the tribal area of South Waziristan, where al Qaida and Taliban leaders are believed to be hiding.
Badh Ber is some seven miles south of Peshawar. The area in and around the city, which borders Pakistan’s semi-autonomous tribal region, has experienced a wave of attacks since the army launched its South Waziristan offensive last month.
More than 50 people have been killed in the area in a little over a week.
Militants staged a pair of attacks against anti-Taliban figures in north-western Pakistan yesterday, killing one of the men.
The Pakistan government has supplemented its military campaigns by helping tribal leaders and local government officials set up militias to fight the Taliban.
The militias, known as lashkars, have been compared to Iraq’s Awakening Councils, which helped US forces turn the tide against al Qaida there.
As in Iraq, militants in Pakistan have targeted the leaders of such groups.
A group of militants opened fire on the house of an elder, Malik Sher Zaman, in the Bajur tribal region yesterday, killing him several months after he signed an agreement with the government to fight the Taliban. The militants blew up part of his house in the Mamund area after the attack.
Several hours later, more than a dozen militants opened fire on the house of an anti-Taliban mayor outside Peshawar, but security guards repelled the attack, killing three of the assailants.
The militants who initiated the attack against mayor Mohammad Fahim Khan’s house in Bazid Khel town, some 10 miles south of Peshawar, had disguised themselves by donning burqas.
Security guards challenged them and the men threw away their disguise and opened fire, but the guards were alert and retaliated quickly.
The guards killed the three militants, but several others joined the fight. The two groups waged a gunbattle before the remaining militants fled.
A growing number of recent attacks in Pakistan have targeted civilians, including a suicide bombing at a market in Peshawar late last month that killed 112 people, the deadliest attack in Pakistan in more than two years.
