Blast at Pakistan police post

2010-09-06 08:20

Peshawar - A suicide car bomber killed at least eight people in an attack on Monday on a police post in northwest Pakistan, a hotbed of al-Qaeda-linked violence, a police official said.

"A suicide attacker drove his bomb-laden vehicle into the back of the police post" in Lakki Marwat in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, not far from tribal areas that are a stronghold of the Taliban, local police chief Gul Wali Khan told AFP by telephone.

"Six dead bodies have been recovered, there were some 45 policeman inside the police station," Saleem Khan, another police official on site told AFP.

A doctor in Lakki Marwat's main hospital said eight dead bodies and 13 injured had been taken to his hospital, which was also damaged.

"We have received eight dead bodies and 13 injured. There are six policemen among the dead. The other two bodies are beyond recognition," Doctor Abdul Majid Marwat said.

Police said the blast destroyed the police station building and damaged a nearby administrative building.

Northwest Pakistan suffers from chronic insecurity, largely connected to the semi-autonomous tribal belt near Afghanistan, which Washington calls the most dangerous place on earth and a global headquarters of al-Qaeda.

Pakistan has been hit by a wave of deadly attacks carried out by the Taliban and other al-Qaeda-linked Islamist extremists.

More than 3 660 people have been killed in a series of suicide attacks and bomb explosions in Pakistan during the past three years.

- SAPA