Bomb on passenger truck kills 7 in NW Pakistan

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-08-17 21:45

A policeman examines a vehicle at the site of an explosion in Charssada located in the northwest province, about 160 km (99 miles) north west of Pakistan's capital Islamabad, August 17, 2009. [Agencies]

PESHAWAR, Pakistan: A bomb exploded on a truck at a fuel station in northwestern Pakistan on Monday, killing seven people, police said, while the Taliban claimed responsibility for two weekend suicide attacks in a valley recently retaken by the army.

Gunmen also assassinated the leader of a feared Sunni sectarian group, triggering rioting in three southern cities.

Pakistan is battling al-Qaida and Taliban militants seeking to topple its secular, pro-Western government. It has been bracing for possible revenge attacks following the reported death of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud in a CIA missile strike August 5 close to the northwestern border with Afghanistan.

Three children were among the dead in Monday's truck bombing, which wounded at least 15 people. Television footage showed bloodstained clothes and sandals scattered around the station in Charsada district, about 12 miles (20 kilometers) outside the main northwestern city of Peshawar, a militant hub with roads that lead into Mehsud territory.

Police officer Sifwat Ghayur said a timed explosive device fashioned from a mortar had been loaded onto the truck in a package marked "medicine" without the driver's knowledge.

The truck functioned as a taxi service between towns. Six of the dead were believed to have been passengers.

Also in the northwest, a Taliban spokesman in the Swat Valley said the group was responsible for two suicide bombings on the police and the army over the weekend that killed seven security forces.

"It is a reaction to the killings of our men in army custody," Muslim Khan told The Associated Press by phone. Residents reported finding 18 bodies, most identified as Taliban, in different areas of Swat on Saturday.

The spokesman said the attacks were timed to coincide with the visit of US envoy Richard Holbrooke, who had been scheduled to travel to Swat over the weekend but canceled, citing heavy rain.

An army spokesman Saturday denied any government involvement in the killings, saying Swat residents may have taken revenge for the Taliban's harsh, monthslong rule in the valley, when they burned down schools and killed anyone who opposed their hard-line interpretation of Islam.

The militants were driven out by an army offensive earlier this year.

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