Suicide attack kills 6, injures dozens in Pakistan

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(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-09-26 11:59

ISLAMABAD: A suicide bomber rammed his explosive-filled vehicle with a police station in northwest Pakistan on Saturday, killing at least six people and injuring around 40 others, police and witnesses said.

The bomber, came from the tribal region, hit his mini-truck with the police station in Bannu district at 7 am, when a large number of police men were present inside the building, District Police Officer, Iqbal Marwat said.

Marwat said that 24 policemen and 15 citizens were injured in one of the deadliest attacks in the area. The police officer said that the bomber had brought the vehicle from the tribal region.

Bannu, which is located near the North Waziristan tribal region, had seen attacks on police and pro-government tribal elders from the suspected Taliban in recent weeks.

The militants killed seven pro-government tribal elders at Jani Khel area near Bannu on Thursday.

Witnesses said that the bomber struck his explosives-laden truck with police station at Mandan, a small village five kilometers from Bannu city. The blast was heard in several kilometers area, locals said.

The blast completely destroyed building of the police station and also damged nearby houses and shops.

"I have never seen so huge attack and destruction in Bannu," a local journalist Munawar Mughal said on phone from Bannu.

He said that the people joined the police to shift the injured to hospital. Several critically injured were taken to Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier Province.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack. But the district police officer balmed the attack on elements in the tribal regions.

Witnesses said that the bomber crossed barriers on the city entry point and succeeded to take the car to the police station building.

Two prisoners in the police station lock were also killed in the attack.

Police sources said that around 80 police men and paramilitray men from Frontier Constabulary were present when the bomber struck the police station.

Emergency was declared in the district headquarters hospital and a large number of people rushed to the hospital to donate blood. The doctors and hospital staff were facing problems to trat so many injured, relatives of the injured said. Five women and 13 children were among the injured, doctors said.

President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani condemned the attack and sent condolence messages to the bereaved families, official statements said.

Zardari, who is in New York to attend the UN General Assembly session, directed the authorities to hold immediate inquiry into the incident. Zardari said in his General Assembly speech that Pakistan is winning war against terrorism.

Provincial Chief Minister Amir Haider Khan Hoti ordered inquiry and said the people behind the brutal attack will not be spared.