CHARSADDA: A suicide bomber smashed his explosives-filled car into a police check post in northwestern Pakistan Wednesday, killing 16 people, police and hospital officials said.
Nine police officers and seven civilians died in the bombing in Charsadda, just north of Peshawar in the North West Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan, they said.
The blast left a crater about three metres (yards) wide, shattered windows in nearby buildings and severed power cables, plunging the area into darkness, an AFP reporter at the site said.
‘Eight policemen and seven civilians were killed after a suicide bomber rammed an explosive-filled car into a police checkpost,’ district police chief Riaz Khan told AFP.
Hospital official Muhammad Ali said 15 people were killed in the blast.
Another police official, Nasrullah Khan, later told AFP that one injured senior police official died on his way to hospital.
‘The death toll has risen to 16 and six people, including three policemen, are injured,’ Khan said.
Provincial police chief Malik Naveed said an investigation team, forensic experts and bomb disposal officials had been sent to the area and were collecting evidence from the blast site.
He said the police was on high alert ahead of the attack.
‘We had intelligence reports that a car bombing could take place in any of three districts of the province,’ Naveed said.
The bombing drew immediate condemnation from President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.
‘The president said that the perpetrators of such a heinous crime would be brought to justice,’ said a statement from Zardari's office.
Nearly 1,800 people have been killed in a wave of bomb attacks since government forces fought gunmen holed up in a radical Islamabad mosque in July 2007.
Much of the violence has been concentrated in the northwest, where Taliban hardliners and Al-Qaeda extremists fled after the 2001 US-led invasion of neighbouring Afghanistan.
Charsadda borders Malakand, which includes the scenic Swat valley and is the subject of a regulation signed this week by Zardari to enforce sharia law as part of efforts to end an insurgency.
Zardari's move formalised a controversial deal between a pro-Taliban cleric who led thousands of supporters to fight against US troops in Afghanistan and the provincial government.
The central government lost control in Swat, a former ski resort and jewel in the crown of Pakistani tourism, after cleric Maulana Fazlullah launched a campaign to enforce Taliban-style sharia.
Militants beheaded opponents, bombed schools and fought government forces, prompting tens of thousands of people to flee.
Charsadda has seen several suicide bombings and is home to the chief of the ruling Awami National Party, Asfandyar Wali Khan, who himself narrowly escaped a suicide attack last year.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday granted bail to Maulana Abdul Aziz, the deposed chief cleric radical Red Mosque, who was captured during the bloody siege, his lawyer said.
Militants said to be loyal to the Red Mosque have been blamed for several attacks, especially a number of blasts in Islamabad, although most have been attributed to Pakistani Taliban rebels
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