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Two killed in suicide attack in PoK

ISLAMABAD: Two soldiers were killed in the first ever suicide bombing in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir on Friday.The attack was claimed by the Pakistani Taliban, whom the military is battling in the North-West Frontier Province The suicide bomber blew himself up near an Army vehicle in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, said the Army.

Two soldiers embraced shahadat [martyrdom] while three others were injured early this morning when a suicide bomber exploded himself against an Army vehicle,” said a statement from the military.

A Pakistani Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the attack to Associated Press. Hakimullah Mehsud, a deputy of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, said the attack was launched to prove that Baitullah had not been weakened by the recent strikes on his suspected hideouts in north-west Pakistan.

The suicide bombing has shaken residents of the sleepy town and raised the spectre of more terrorist attacks haunting the rest of Pakistan. There have been two or three bombings before in PoK, at least one in Muzaffarabad, but never a suicide attack. The last big bomb attack was in 1999 in Kotli, on a bus that had set off from Rawalpindi, and it killed seven people.

Friday's bombing was also the first in the territory specifically targeting the security forces. The attack took place near a residential barracks for Army officers located behind the Army Public School in the PoK capital.The territory continues to be home to militants who cross the Line of Control for jihad on the Indian side of Kashmir. The outfits are known to have links with the Taliban.

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