By IANS,
Peshawar : At least 10 people, including the city mayor, were killed and over 30 injured in a suicide bombing at a crowded livestock market close to this Pakistan frontier city, less than a fortnight after a massive bomb blast killed over 110 people here.
Police officer Liaquat Ali Khan said the bombing was targeted at Mayor Abdul Malik, who was wounded and taken to hospital where he died.
The attack took place outside a cattle market in the Adezai area, located 25 km south-west of Peshawar, the capital of restive North-West Frontier Province that borders Afghanistan.
At least seven vehicles were destroyed in the blast in Matni area of Adezai. Buildings too were damaged in the powerful explosion that spread panic in the area.
Malik, who had survived several previous attempts on his life, headed the local militia formed against militants operating in the nearby Khyber tribal region, DPA reported.
Senior Superintendent of Police (Operation) Karim Khan said the blast seemed to be a suicide attack, Geo News reported.
Terrorists based in Khyber Agency and Darra Adamkhel are suspected to have carried out the attack in which over 30 people were injured.
The wounded were rushed to Lady Reading Hospital where nine of them were in a critical condition.
This city faced this year’s worst terror attack Oct 28 when over 110 people were killed in a massive bombing at a crowded market.
Pakistan has witnessed a series of terror strikes as the army battled the Taliban in mountainous South Waziristan. The Taliban have vowed to retaliate over the US drone attacks, one of which killed their leader Baitullah Mehsud in early August.
The latest wave of militant violence started with a suicide bombing at the offices of the UN World Food Programme in Islamabad Oct 5. Five employees of the agency were killed.
The heavily fortified Pakistani Army’s General Headquarters had come under attack Oct 10 when 10 terrorists in military uniform laid siege to it. At least 19 people, including nine raiders, died in the 22-hour standoff. One militant was arrested.
On Oct 15, gunmen wearing suicide vests stormed two police academies and the offices of Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency in Lahore. A car bomber struck at a police station in the northwestern town of Kohat. At least 38 people including 11 insurgents were killed in a single day.
A twin suicide bombing Oct 20 at the International Islamic University here killed seven people.
On Oct 22, Brigadier Moinuddin Ahmed, who was the head of the UN peacekeeping mission in Sudan, was gunned down in Islamabad along with another soldier.
A day later, 25 people were killed and 27 injured in a series of blasts across Pakistan. Eighteen people died in a landmine explosion in Mohmand Agency while seven were killed when a suicide bomber struck at an air force base in Attock district. Eight people were injured in the Peshawar bombing.