Seven killed in bomb blast in northwestern Pakistan

Irfan Mughal

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (Reuters) – A bomb blew up a
police vehicle in northwestern Pakistan on Sunday, killing
seven people, including three policeman and three paramilitary
troops, police said.

“It was a remote-controlled bomb,” Daar Ali Khattak,
District Police Officer, told reporters. It blew up the vehicle
as it was patrolling on the outskirts of the town of Dera
Ismail Khan.

Khattak said a passerby was among the dead and hospital
officials said five people were wounded.

No one claimed responsibility for the attack but Khattak
said it could be part of the ongoing militant violence in the
nearby tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

“It could be the reaction of the (military) operation going
on in the tribal region.”

Dera Ismail Khan is close to the troubled Waziristan tribal
region where security forces have been battling with al
Qaeda-linked militants and their local supporters over the past
two years.

Nearly 200 pro-Taliban militants have been killed in
clashes with the security forces in the North Waziristan tribal
region this month.

Many al Qaeda fighters and their Taliban supporters fled to
the semi-autonomous tribal belt after U.S. and Afghan
opposition forces ousted the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in
2001.

“HOT TARGETS”

Pakistani security forces have been trying to clear foreign
militants from the area and subdue their Pakistani allies since
2004 and hundreds of people have been killed.

Khattak said security had been beefed up in Dera Ismail
Khan and nearby Tank town over concerns of militant attacks.

“We consider these towns as hot targets of the militants,”
he said.

Pakistan’s tribal belt and areas on the Afghan side of the
long border are dominated by ethnic Pashtuns.

Many tribesmen sympathize with the Taliban, also Pashtuns,
and al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman
al-Zawahri are believed to be hiding in the region.

Afghan officials have long complained that militants use
Pakistani territory as a springboard for launching attacks
inside Afghanistan.

Pakistan, a key ally in the U.S.-led war on terrorism, says
it is doing all it can to stem cross-border movement of the
militants and has urged Afghan authorities to do more on their
side of the porous border.