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Suicide car bomb kills four Pakistani police

28 April 2010 17:57 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. A suicide car bomb attack hit a Pakistani police checkpoint on the outskirts of Peshawar before dawn Wednesday, killing four police and wounding 11 people, including a woman and a cleric, APA reports quoting AFP.
Northwest Pakistan is on the front line of the country’s battle against Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants holed up in the tribal belt on the Afghan border which is subject to Pakistani military operations and US drone attacks.
More than 50 bomb attacks have struck the nuclear-armed country so far this year, killing around 500 people, and a string of deadly attacks this month have been largely concentrated in the northwest.
Wednesday’s attacker struck the checkpoint in Pir Bala village, on the main road from Peshawar, Pakistan’s northwestern capital, to Mohmand, one of seven districts in the Al-Qaeda and Taliban-infested tribal belt.
The force of the blast practically destroyed the one-storey mud-brick building at the police post, and damaged nearby houses, witnesses said.
"I was returning from the mosque after dawn prayers when I saw a vehicle speed towards the police post," Saadat Ali, a 21-year-old university student with steel pellet injuries in his shoulder told AFP from hospital.
"Police officials from the post opened fire and then I heard a huge blast. There was thick smoke and I passed out," he added.
Peshawar city police chief Liaquat Ali said four policemen were killed and 11 other people wounded.
"Two policemen are in a critical condition," he told AFP.
Those who were killed had been on duty at the checkpoint at the time of the attack, between 4:30 and 5:00 am, said police official Mussarat Khan.
"The small building at the police checkpoint was destroyed. A nearby house and a mosque were also damaged," he said.
Peshawar, with its bustling markets and its profile as a regional headquarters for government and security forces, has been on the front line of deadly attacks.
The teeming city runs into the tribal belt, which Washington calls the most dangerous place on earth and a global headquarters of Al-Qaeda.
Ali told reporters the bomber intended to strike elsewhere in the city of 2.5 million and only detonated his vehicle when he was stopped.
Pir Bala straddles Warsak Road, which links Peshawar to the mountains of the tribal badlands. This area became a stronghold for hundreds of extremists who fled Afghanistan after the US-led invasion in late 2001.
Mohammad Gul, a police official on duty at Peshawar’s Lady Reading Hospital, confirmed the death toll and said a cleric and a woman were among the wounded.
Siraj Ahmad, a local administration official in Peshawar, said five civilians were among the 11 people wounded.
Separately, troops killed four foreign militants in an exchange of fire at Isha checkpoint, some 10 kilometres (six miles) east of Miranshah, the main town of North Waziristan tribal district, security officials said.
"The firing broke out and lasted for more than one hour after militants did not stop their car when signalled at Isha checkpost," a senior security official told AFP.
"Five security officials were injured in the gunfight and four militants were killed, while one of them managed to flee," the official said, adding that the nationalities of the dead militants were not immediately known.
Another security official confirmed the incident and death toll and said the militants appeared to be from Central Asia.
A campaign of suicide and bomb attacks has killed nearly 3,300 people in less than three years across the nuclear-armed country of 167 million. The attacks are blamed on Al-Qaeda, Taliban and other extremist Islamist groups.
Under US pressure, Pakistan as of last year significantly increased air and ground offensives against homegrown militants in the tribal belt.
But the rugged region is also routinely hit by US drone attacks targeting Al-Qaeda-linked and Taliban commanders.
More than 880 people have been killed in nearly 100 drone strikes in Pakistan since August 2008. The bombing raids fuel anti-American sentiment in Muslim Pakistan and draw public condemnation from the government.