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Blast: Shops engulfed in fire
25/10/2007 15:55 - (SA)
Peshawar, Pakistan - A blast tore through a security forces vehicle in restive northwest Pakistan on Thursday, killing 30 people and wounding dozens more, a senior security official said.
The attack in the scenic Swat valley in North West Frontier Province was the latest in a wave of strikes targeting the military since government troops stormed the al-Qaeda-linked Red Mosque in Islamabad in July.
It also came just one day after Pakistan deployed more than 2 000 military troops to the area to bolster efforts to stem the rising violence, linked to pro-Taliban militants.
The truck - carrying paramilitary soldiers and packed with ammunition - was travelling on a road outside the valley's main city Mingora when the explosion occurred, the security official said.
"Thirty people were killed in the explosion including 17 paramilitary soldiers. The damage was high because the truck was packed with ammunition," the official, who asked not to be named, told AFP.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for Thursday's attack.
Security sources said a suicide bomber had detonated his explosives near the truck, but the government said the vehicle's cargo could have triggered the explosion.
"The nature of the blast is not clear and it is being ascertained. There was ammunition in the truck which caused the damage," interior ministry spokesperson Javed Cheema told AFP.
Most of the attacks in Pakistan since the Red Mosque raid have been suicide blasts that have killed about 400 people, including soldiers, according to an AFP tally.
The Swat valley was once one of Pakistan's premier tourist attractions, but the area in conservative North West Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan has become a stronghold of banned group Tahreek Nifaz-e-Shariat Mohammadi (TNSM).
'Some of the bodies are charred'
The group, led by radical cleric Maulana Fazlullah, has close ties to pro-Taliban fighters who have been mounting attacks on government officials and security forces in the area.
A doctor at a local hospital said 10 bodies had been brought in so far, along with 35 wounded.
"Some of the bodies are charred," Nisar Khan told AFP.
The truck caught fire immediately after the explosion in Nawakilli area on the outskirts of Mingora, and firefighters were struggling to contain the blaze, senior police officer Akbar Ali said.
"The fire also engulfed at least 10 nearby shops," Ali said.
The military said on Wednesday that it had deployed the extra troops to the Swat valley in a bid to improve law and order in the troubled region.
A local government official also warned on Wednesday that 400 militants under Fazlullah's command had been attacking local security forces.
Local home secretary Badshah Gul Wazir told a news conference in the provincial capital Peshawar that the TNSM group was also trying to seize control of dozens of villages.
TNSM was banned by President Pervez Musharraf in 2002 after it sent more than 10 000 volunteers to fight in Afghanistan against US forces who led an invasion to oust the country's hardline Taliban regime.
Hundreds of Taliban militants fled back over the Afghan border into Pakistan's nearby tribal areas after the fall of the extremists in 2001.
- AFP
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