Atleast 7 killed in two separate blasts in Pak

Miranshah (Pakistan), July 12: At least seven people, including three policemen, were killed in two separate blasts in northwest Pakistan on Thursday, one of them a suicide bomb attack on a senior government official.

The explosions came two days after Pakistani security forces killed a radical cleric and more than 70 militants in an assault on a mosque-madrasa compound in Islamabad.

Nearly 30 people have been killed in attacks on security forces and government targets in the northwest frontier region since the army laid siege to the Red Mosque on July 3, raising suspicions that an expected backlash was already under way.

Today, a suicide bomb attack on the office of the top government official in the North Waziristan tribal region killed two people, a witness wounded in the blast said.

Political Agent Pirzada Khan, the top federal government administrator of North Waziristan, one of seven semi-autonomous tribal regions, was unhurt.

But according to a hospital doctor two of Khan's staff were killed, while a guest and an office worker were wounded.

''A man dressed in black blew himself up when he was stopped by an office worker in Khan's office,'' Sher Zaman told Reuters from his hospital bed in Miranshah, the main town in a region regarded as a hotbed of support for the Taliban and al Qaeda.

Officials were trying to determine whether an attack targeting a police vehicle in Swat town was also carried out by a suicide bomber.

The blast killed five people, including three policemen, said Shamsul Qamar, an official at the police control room in Swat.

Many of the militant students in Red Mosque, or Lal Masjid, came from the semi-autonomous and settled tribal lands, including Waziristan and Swat, along the Afghan border.

Attacks targeting security forces are common in the region, but the frequency of attacks this week have fuelled speculation they could be related to the army's assault on Lal Masjid.

REUTERS

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