Pakistan: Bombings kill 19, wound dozens

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-11-07 10:45

KHAR, Pakistan -- Two separate suicide attacks targeting pro-government tribesmen and security forces killed at least 19 people and wounded dozens in areas of Pakistan's northwest where the military has pursued anti-insurgent offensives, officials said.

People carry an injured a victim of a suicide blast at a local hospital in Peshawar November 6, 2008. A suicide bomber blew himself up on Thursday at a meeting of ethnic Pashtun tribal leaders in northwest Pakistan's Bajaur region on the Afghan border killing 10 people and wounding 30, government officials said. [Agencies]

While Pakistan has earned US praise for its offensives against militants, many of whom are involved in violence in neighboring Afghanistan, the insurgents have struck back several times, further dismaying a population simmering with anti-US sentiment.

In the Bajur tribal region, a suicide attacker on Thursday killed 17 local tribesmen who, with government backing, had formed a militia to combat insurgents. Another 40 people were hurt, government and hospital officials said.

In the northwest's Swat Valley later Thursday, a suicide car bomber rammed his vehicle into a checkpoint manned by security forces near a police compound, killing at least two paramilitary troops and wounding at least 20 other people, officials said.

Pakistan launched an offensive in Bajur three months ago to dismantle what it said was a virtual Taliban mini-state from where militants were flowing into Afghanistan.

The Salarzai tribesmen were preparing to stage an assault on local militant hide-outs when the blast occurred, said Iqbal Khattak, a government official.

Khattak said 11 bodies were taken to the main hospital in the Bajur city of Khar. Mohammad Kareem, a hospital official, said later that at least six of some 45 wounded people had died and that more than a dozen were in serious condition.

Late Thursday, a man who said he was a spokesman for a Taliban-linked group, Caravan-e-Naimatullah, claimed it was behind the bombing. Little is known about the group but earlier this year it briefly took over a handful of schools in the region.

The army claims to have killed some 1,500 insurgents in the Bajur offensive. At least 73 troops and 95 civilians have also died, it says. Lack of security and government restrictions mean accounts of the fighting cannot be verified.

The suicide car bombing rocked the Mingora area in Swat. Officials initially reported a huge explosion and said there was extensive damage followed by a firefight that made it difficult for authorities to search the area.

Senior police official Dilawar Bangash said two paramilitary troops were killed, while Abdullah Khan, an official at a hospital nearby, said at least 20 wounded people came in.

A suicide attack in October in the nearby Orakzai tribal region against another such militia left dozens dead.