Suicide bomber targeting police in Pakistan kills 11

Four police and seven civilians, including two children, were killed in the Taliban-claimed attack in Peshawar

PESHAWAR // A suicide bomber riding a motorcycle killed at least 10 people on Tuesday in a Taliban-claimed attack on the outskirts of the Pakistani city of Peshawar.

Another 36 were injured when the bomb exploded in the market beside a road jammed with traffic in the Wazir Dhand district just outside city limits. The highway links the Khyber tribal district and the northwestern city.

Four police and seven civilians, including two children, were among those killed, said police official Iqbal Khan.

A 36-year-old local journalist who had been visiting a tribal police official – the bomber’s apparent target – also died in the market attack, said Shahab Ali Shah, a Khyber tribal district administration official.

Grief-stricken colleagues of the journalist, Mahboob Shah Afridi – who was president of Tribal Union of Journalists in the neighbouring Khyber region – comforted one another in the market after the attack.

Six of the injured were in serious condition, a hospital official said.

A local Pakistani Taliban commander, Maqbool Dawar, claimed the attack saying it was in response to the killing of his comrades by security forces.

Peshawar is on the edge of Pakistan’s volatile tribal regions, a stronghold of the Taliban and other militants.

Ismatullah, a senior government official in the area, also confirmed the target had been a police official sitting in the market alongside the road.

The blast damaged three shops, as well as cars and motorcycles on the road, he said.

Nisar Khan, who was waiting to cross the road, said the checkpoint was choked with traffic at the time of the attack. He said the huge blast left vehicles in flames and that he saw wounded people in pools of blood crying out for help.

Khyber is one of Pakistan’s seven tribal districts situated next to Peshawar and bordering Afghanistan.

The mountainous forest regions have for years been home to some of the world’s most notorious militants linked to Al Qaeda or the Taliban.

Islamabad launched a military offensive in 2014 that has reportedly killed thousands of militants and pushed the rest over the border to Afghanistan, resulting in improved security inside Pakistan. However, the Taliban have still managed to carry out major attacks, including an assault on an army-run school in Peshawar in December 2014 that killed over 150 people, mostly children.

* Agence France-Presse and Associated Press