Islamabad, January 23: A Suicide car bomb attack killed at least four people in a town in troubled northwest Pakistan today, police said.
The attack took place close to a police station in Gomal, near the tribal region of South Waziristan where Pakistani troops were battling Islamist militants.
“The bomber struck … outside the police station, killing one policeman and three passers-by including two children,” district police chief Ejaz Abid said.
He said 11 people including five policemen, three passers-by and three prisoners in the police lock-up were injured.
“This was a car bomb attack, which is a reaction to the ongoing operation in South Waziristan region,” Abid said.
The region is the target of Pakistan’s most ambitious military offensive yet against homegrown Taliban militants. The government deployed about 30,000 troops there on October 17.
Another senior police official, Ghazanfar Hussain, also confirmed the incident and casualties.
“I was busy in routine desk work inside the police station when a large blast rocked the entire building,” Hussain said.
He added that one of the outer walls of the police station collapsed from the impact of the blast and big cracks appeared in other rooms of the building.
Attacks, blamed mostly on the Taliban and concentrated in the northwest and major cities, have killed more than 2,900 people across Pakistan since July 2007.
—Agencies