Four killed in Pakistan bomb attack

Police officers gather at a bomb blast site in Mardan, Pakistan, yesterday after a car bomb ripped through a police station. PHOTO: AFP

Four were killed and 30 hurt when a car bomb ripped through a police station in northwest Pakistan yesterday, ending a lull in attacks since a new government took power last month.

The powerful blast in the city of Mardan reduced the police station to a pile of rubble and wrecked an adjoining hotel and several shops, senior police officer Mohammad Akhtar Khan said.

“There was a huge explosion. It was an apparent car bomb planted next to the wall between the hotel and the police station and both were wrecked,” Khan said by telephone.

“Two policemen including an officer and two civilian workers were killed,” he said.

A security official said 30 people were wounded in the explosion and that some of the shops were also practically destroyed by the force of the blast.

“There were some people inside the hotel and the shops were opening, then there was a deafening blast. Debris flew in the air and there was thick black smoke,” witness Sikander Khan said.

“People are saying that a man in a Suzuki car came to the hotel, parked his car outside and then entered to order a cup of tea and then disappeared,” he said.

Several were earlier believed to be buried in the rubble but police had now accounted for everyone, said another police official, Mohammad Zulfiqar.

“We are using bulldozers to clear the massive debris, hopefully no one is still buried under it,” he said.

Ten inside the station were injured by shrapnel, Zulfiqar said, adding that an estimated 45kg of explosive was used.

There was no immediate claim or attribution of responsibility for the attack.

The blast was the first since Pakistan’s new government was sworn in at the end of last month, vowing to hold talks with Muslim militants and to reverse President Pervez Musharraf’ss strongarm tactics.

It came despite a unilateral ceasefire announced this week by Pakistani Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud, who has denied accusations by the previous government of masterminding the assassination of ex-premier former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

Mardan the home town of the new chief minister of North West Frontier Province, Amir Haider Hoti, a secular politician who is playing a key role in negotiations with the rebels.

Officials earlier this week that the government had made a draft peace agreement with the militants, with steps including a ceasefire on both sides, the withdrawal of troops from certain areas and an exchange of prisoners.

A top pro-Taliban militant, Sufi Mohammad, was freed by Pakistan on Monday.

The White House has warned Pakistan against negotiating with militants, saying that its key ally in the “war on terror” should not bow to Islamic extremism.

A number of missile strikes on suspected militant targets in Pakistan’s tribal belt bordering Afghanistan earlier this year were attributed to US forces in Afghanistan.

The last bombing in Pakistan linked to Islamic militants was a suicide attack on an army base in the tribal area of South Waziristan on March 20, in which five soldiers were killed and a dozen others injured.