PESHAWAR: At least five people were killed and eight injured in a bomb attack near a police van in the country's restive northwest province on Wednesday, officials said.
"Five people including four police personnel and a child were killed in a bomb blast in Sir Dheri, some 30 kilometres or 18.6 miles north of Peshawar," senior police official Shafi Ullah told AFP.
"Apparently it was a planted device but we are still investigating the nature of the blast," he added.
He said the police van was on its usual patrol during the blast.
A senior health official also confirmed the casualties.
"We have received five dead bodies and eight injured" Zahid Ullah, senior health official at the government-run district hospital at Charsadda told AFP.
The Pakistani Taliban, other militant affiliates and Al-Qaeda-linked networks all have strongholds in the country's northwest, particularly in the semi-autonomous areas on the Afghan border.
Earlier, a suicide attack on Monday in a market next to Pakistan's military headquarters killed 13 people including eight soldiers and three children.
And on Sunday, a vehicle-borne suicide bomb in the restive northwestern city of Bannu killed 26 people, the deadliest attack on Pakistan's military in several years.
The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan has waged a bloody campaign against the state in recent years, carrying out a number of bomb and gun attacks. (AFP)
