PESHAWAR: A roadside bomb targeting a local leader of a nationalist party in northwest Pakistan killed three people and wounded two others yesterday, police said.
The incident took place in Buner district in the troubled northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, close to Swat Valley where Taliban insurgents shot schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai in the head.
Police said the remote-controlled bomb hit the vehicle of Adalat Khan, a local leader of nationalist Qaumi Watan Party, killing him along with two associates.
“Adalat Khan and his two associates have been killed. Two others in the car were critically injured,” Asif Iqbal, a senior police official said.
No militant group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but a local intelligence official said that Khan had supported an Anti-Taliban village militia in 2009. The head of that militia was later killed in a suicide attack in November 2012.
Separately, at least nine militants were killed yesterday when Pakistani gunship helicopters pounded Taliban hideouts in Thall village in Hangu district, near the tribal areas where militants linked to the Taliban and Al Qaeda have strongholds, a security official said.
“Gunship helicopters engaged the hideouts after confirmed reports of the terrorists’ presence,” the security official said.
These were the second air attacks against Taliban militants this month in retaliation at strikes by insurgents, which have derailed peace talks.
At least 30 militants were killed on Thursday after Pakistan jets carried out airstrikes on Taliban hideouts in the northwest. AFP
