Suicide attack in NW Pakistan kills 2, injures 7

Islamabad, Jan 29: In a third terror strike in the last four days, two people, including a suicide bomber, were killed in Northwestern Pakistan today.

The bomber, who was wrapped in a cloak, blew himself while refusing to undergo a body search at a police post in Dera Islamil Khan town of Northwestern Frontier Province (NWFP).

A policeman and the bomber died on the spot while seven others, including two policemen, sustained injuries in the attack.

''The attack was targeted against police,'' a senior police official Aslam Khattak told reporters.

The suicide attack came hours after security agencies arrested six suspected suicide bombers from Dera Ismail Khan and shifted them to Islamabad for interrogation.

Security was heightened with deployment of additional police force and rangers in Islamabad following the incident to secure mourning procession of over 100,000 Shiites in Islamabad.

Pakistan's private Geo TV quoted security officials as saying that the six alleged attackers, arrested in D I Khan, belonged to Baitullah Mehsud group.

The pro-Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, who is hiding in Pakistani tribal regions, had recently threatened to take revenge of recent air strike in Bajaur region, which killed more than 20 suspected militants.

''We will take revenge of Bajaur killings, which will cause a pain to Pakistan,'' Mehsud recently said in a statement.

Last week on Saturday night, at least thirteen people including two senior police officials were killed and another sixty injured in suicide attack in Peshawar, capital of the Northwestern Frontier Province.

Chief Minister NWFP Akram Durrani had said after the attack that it was targeted against police officials.

He said that majority of those killed and injured in the blast were police and law enforcement officials, who were deployed in the area to provide security cover to a Shiites' mourning procession, which was to pass by Dkahi Dalgaran bazaar of Qissa Khuwani area.

Also on Friday, a suicide attack near parking area of Marriott hotel in Islamabad had killed both the bomber and a security guard.

The bomber had blown himself up after he was stopped by the guard to enter the hotel.

Hundreds of people have been killed in suicide attacks and bomb explosions in the country since President General Pervez Musharraf banned six militant and extremist outfits in January 2002 almost a year after joining the US-led international war against terror.

UNI