At least 28 killed in Pak suicide attack, Minister injured

Islamabad, Apr 28 (UNI) At least 28 people were killed and more than 50 others, including Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao, injured in a suicide attack in Charsada town of North West Frontier Province today.

Police officials said Sherpao appeared to be the target of the suicide bomber, whose decapitated head has been found from the site of the public meeting where the explosion took place.

They said the bomber could be an Afghan national.

Secretary Interior Syed Kamal Shah said the blast took place despite strict security arrangements at the venue of the public meeting. He said that intelligence agencies had recently advised the government to take precuationary measures to prevent fresh terror attacks in the area.

Officials said the interior minister and his son Sikandar Sherpao received minor injuries.

An emergency was declared at hospitals in Charsada and Peshawar where more than 50 people injured were shifted.

This was the third major attack on a top leader since December 2003 when President Pervez Musharraf, who ordered a series of anti-terror operations in the country's restive tribal regions against al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives, survived two assassination attempts in the garrison town of Rawalpindi.

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz also escaped unhurt in a suicide attack in July 2004 during a public meeting in Fateh Jang town near Islamabad.

The attack coincided with reports about arrest of the main mastermind of terror attacks on President Musharraf in the United States. Abd Al Hadi was captured while he was trying to enter Iraq to plan more attacks against the US troops stationed there.

Acting President Muhammad Mian Soomro, the Prime Minister and Chief Minister of the conservative Northwestern Frontier Province Akram Durrani condemned the attack and said the government would not be cowed down by such dastardly acts.

More than 400 people have been killed in suicide attacks and bomb blasts in major Pakistani cities including Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar, Sialkot, Quetta and Multan since early 2002 when President Musharraf joined the US-led international war against terror.

The attack came weeks after the pro-government tribesmen in the troubled South Waziristan tribal region flushed foreign militants, mostly Uzbeks from their area following two weeks of fierce fighting that left more than 200 people killed.

Pakistani security forces carried out a series of anti-terror operations in North and South Waziristan as well as Bajaur agency in the tribal areas, all bordering Afghanistan since 2004 to hunt down al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives.

The government, however, signed peace deals with the locals in North and South Waziristan to restore peace in the areas. But NATO and US officials criticised the deal believing that it helped Taliban to find new sanctuaries and re-group on Pakistani soil for activities against the foreign troops in Afghanistan.

UNI