International   

32 killed in Pakistan suicide blast

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan had barely finished counting its dead from two suicide bombings in the North West Frontier Province, when another suicide bomber struck in Darra Adam Khel on Sunday morning, killing at least 32 persons and wounding more than 30 others.

Dawn News, quoting hospital sources, said at least 42 persons were killed in the attack.

It was the third bombing in as many days. A suicide attack on a funeral procession left 50 persons dead on Friday and another in the Bajaur tribal agency on Saturday killed 20.

The unrelenting wave of suicide bombings, that appears to spare neither mosques nor graveyards, mourners or worshippers, has caused large-scale confusion and fear days ahead of a new government taking over the troubled province.

The secular Pakhtun nationalist Awami National Party, which won the largest number of provincial assembly seats in the February 18 election, is poised to form the next government in the NWFP with help from the Pakistan People’s Party. But the ANP hit a controversy even before it could form the government.

Last week, the party named Amir Haidar Khan Hoti, a great grandson of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, for the post of Chief Minister of the province. The nomination saw angry scenes outside the Bachcha Khan Markaz, the ANP headquarters in Peshawar, with protests by supporters of Bashir Ahmed Bilour, a senior contender of the post.

The suicide bomber struck a grand jirga of five tribes in Zarghon village near Darra Adam Khel, a world-famous for its guns bazaar. The meeting was discussing the increasing pro-Taliban activities in the region, which considered itself among the handful of areas in the NWFP free of militancy until a few months ago.

But residents were in for a rude shock last month, when pro-Taliban militants took over a portion of an arterial road. The military had to launch a massive operation to dislodge the militants who had taken control of the Kohat Tunnel on the Peshawar Karachi road. The military said it killed 70 militants and that the rest had fled the area.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

32 killed in Pakistan suicide blast
Ahmadinejad hopes to enhance people-to-people contacts with Iraq
China forum to discuss government work
U.K. urged to ban LTTE ‘front’ organisations
Kosovo Premier rules out partition

Copyright © 2008, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu