By IANS,
Islamabad : Twenty five people were killed and 27 injured Friday in a series of blasts across Pakistan. Eighteen people died in a landmine explosion while seven were killed when a suicide bomber struck at an air force base in Attock district. Eight people were injured in a bombing outside a restaurant in Peshawar.
The bombings took place as the army continued its operations in the Taliban stronghold of South Waziristan.
Eighteen people, including women and children, were killed while six people were injured, when a bus carrying a marriage party was blown up in a landmine explosion in Pakistan’s Mohmand Agency. The bus carrying a marriage party was struck the anti tank mine planted by militants in Lakro area, Geo News reported.
At another terror attack on the military establishment, a suicide bomber riding a bicycle blew himself up at a security checkpost near Pakistan Aeronautical Complex in Kamra.
A police official told Geo TV that seven people, including two securitymen, were killed while the injured were taken to Attock Hospital.
The Pakistan Aeronautical Complex at Kamra is the country’s major air force maintenance and research hub, Dawn News reported.
Some foreign military experts have suggested it is a possible place to keep aircraft that can carry nuclear warheads. The army has denied that the facility is tied to the nuke programme.
Friday’s third blast took place in Peshawar’s residential Hayatabad area.
Eyewitnesses told DawnNews that the blast was heard in front of the city’s popular Swan restaurant.
The front wall of the restaurant was damaged and car parts littered the area, suggesting that a car bomb had gone off.
Police say at least eight people have been injured in the blast.
The terror attacks come just a day after a senior Pakistani Army officer, who was the head of the UN peacekeeping mission in Sudan, was gunned down along with another soldier.
Brigadier Moinuddin Ahmed, who was former deputy director general military operations, was killed by gunmen who ambushed his jeep.
Over 170 people have been killed in the latest wave of militant violence, which 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 most audacious attack came on Oct 10 when 10 terrorists in military uniform laid siege to the Pakistan Army’s General Headquarters in Rawalpindi. 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 the eastern city of Lahore. A car bomber struck 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.