Suicide attack kills 9 soldiers in northwest Pakistan

Islamabad, Dec 17: A suicide attack today killed nine soldiers, all members of the army football team, in Pakistan's Northwestern Frontier Province, two days after President Pervez Musharraf lifted the state of emergency.

Chief Military spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad told the state-run Pakistan Television that all the players were coming back from a match when they were attacked in the Kohat town, known as a high security zone because it houses sensitive military buildings and installations.

''It was a suicide attack, which killed nine people, all armymen,'' Maj Gen Arshad said, adding that the army conrdoned off the area and launched investigations.

General (retd) Musharraf, who had imposed emergency on November 3, citing growing Islamic militancy in the troubled northwest as well as the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, lifted it on December 15, claiming that the increasing wave of terrorism had been checked.

More than 400 people have been killed in series of suicide attacks and bomb explosions in the restive north after the army's operation against Islamabad's radical Lal Masjid in July.

UNI