QUETTA: A bomb planted on a motorcycle killed a civilian and wounded 22 others in a busy marketplace in Pakistan’s troubled southwest, police said.
The bomb, detonated by remote control, exploded in the town of Sibbi, in the oil- and gas-rich province of Balochistan bordering Iran and Afghanistan, police official Nazar Muhammad said.
“The condition of six of the injured was critical and they have been taken to a nearby military hospital,” Muhammad said.
“The target of the attack is yet not clear but apparently the terrorists wanted to create panic.” The victims were local villagers, Muhammad added. Senior police official Naseebullah Khoso confirmed the incident and said that no women or children were among the victims.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack. Balochistan has long been plagued by Islamist militancy, sectarian violence and a separatist insurgency.
The annual death toll from terrorist attacks has risen from 164 in 2003 to 3318 in 2009 with a total of 35,000 Pakistanis killed between September 11, 2001 and May 2011.
According to the government of Pakistan, the direct and indirect economic costs of terrorism from 2000–2010 total $68bn.
President Asif Ali Zardari, along with former President ex-Pakistan army head Pervez Musharraf, have admitted that terrorist outfits were ‘deliberately created and nurtured’ by past governments ‘as a policy to achieve some short-term tactical objectives’. AFP
