5 killed in landmine blast in Pakistan tribal region

Miranshah (Pakistan), Apr 3: Five people including two women were killed in a landmine explosion in Pakistan's restive tribal region near the Afghan border today, intelligence officials said.

The incident occured in the North Waziristan tribal region where around 200 tribesmen were killed in clashes with security forces last month after they answered a call to arms by militant Muslim clerics following a special forces assault on an al Qaeda camp.

The victims were travelling in a vehicle in Dattakhel area near North Waziristan's main town of Miranshah when it struck a landmine.

''Five people were killed on the spot while the sixth is in critical condition,'' said an intelligence official.

The incident took place a day after one soldier was killed and 10 people wounded in clashes in the region, which is infested with al Qaeda and Taliban fighters and their local sympathisers.

President Pervez Musharraf, a key ally in the U S-led war on terror, last month warned foreign militants hiding in the tribal region to leave Pakistan or face annihilation.

A large number of al Qaeda remnants and Taliban fled to Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal belt after U S-led forces toppled the radical Taliban regime in Afghanistan following the September 11, 2001 attacks on Washington and New York.

Reuters