24 killed in Nowshera, Matani blasts Monday June 06, 2011

Source: paktribune

NOWSHERA/PESHAWAR: Twenty four persons were killed and 52 others injured in two separate blasts in Nowshera and Matani near Peshawar on Sunday.

Seventeen persons were killed and 46 injured when a suicide bomber blew himself up in an Army-run bakery on the Mall Road, official sources and eyewitnesses said. They said a huge fire erupted after the explosion and most of the victims were burnt to death.

The blast also destroyed 10 nearby shops and damaged several other buildings and vehicles. Immediately after the incident, security forces cordoned off the area and sealed the roads leading to the blast site.

Sources said all the injured persons were rushed to the nearby Combined Military Hospital and District Headquarters Hospital, Nowshera, where authorities had already declared an emergency. Hospital sources said 10 of the blast victims were in precarious condition. The wife and two children of Army Major Tahir and Subedar Sajjad Hussain were among the dead.

Initially, there were conflicting reports about the exact nature of the explosion. Some said it was a blast caused by a gas cylinder while others felt an explosive device planted by the militants had exploded. However, District Police Officer Muhammad Quresh and officials of the Bomb Disposal Unit later confirmed it was a suicide attack. They said they had found the head and leg of the suicide bomber and collected parts of the detonated vest. They said the bomber seemed to be 17-19 years of age. Officials said eight to 10 kilograms of explosives were used in the attack.

The bakery, popularly known as Salwa Bakery, is located in the high security zone near sensitive military installations in the Nowshera Cantonment. Sources said a huge blaze erupted after the explosion that reduced several shops to ashes besides gutting the bakery.

Fire tenders from Nowshera Town Municipal Corporation, Cantonment Board, Pakistan Air Force and Pakistan Locomotive Factory, Risalpur, and Peshawar were summoned to extinguish the inferno.

Meanwhile, security forces arrested two Americans from the site but refused to give any details about them. Both had received bruises in the incident. Earlier in the day, seven people, including two women, and a minor girl, were killed and six others injured when a powerful bomb exploded in the congested bazaar in Matani town, around 20 kilometres south of Peshawar. A police official said the bomb was planted in a handbag placed in a vehicle.

The killed and wounded were all passengers who were about to leave for the Kalakhel area in the semi-tribal territory of Darra Adamkhel. Mohammad, the spokesman for the outlawed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Darra Adamkhel chapter, claimed responsibility for the attack and said members of the pro-government Lashkar, or armed volunteers, were the target in the strike.

The police and Frontier Constabulary personnel rushed to the blast site and cordoned off the area to avoid a second blast that was feared at the time. The bomb also destroyed three nearby vehicles.

Those killed in the blast included a 70-year-old woman Sadro Bibi, another female Huma, 11-year-old Nazia, a villager Yar Afzal and three other persons, who could not be identified immediately after the attack.

The injured included Haroon Khan, Haji Shahid and four children aged around 13 years. They were identified as Omar, Amir Nawaz, Israr and Riaz. The injured were rushed to the Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar in private vehicles before the hospital ambulances could arrive at the spot.

Arooj Shirazi of the Rescue 1122 said four of those brought to the hospital had already expired while Sadro Bibi succumbed to her injuries at the hospital.

The bomb disposal unit experts said around five kilograms of explosives with ball bearings and bolts were used in the attack. Superintendent of Police (Rural) Kalam Khan said unidentified people kept the explosives, connected with a time device, in the vehicle concealed in a handbag. The owner of the vehicle has been arrested and is being interrogated to ascertain how the explosives were placed in the pick-up truck.

The Matani area has witnessed dozens of attacks in the past two years following the decision of villagers to raise a Qaumi Lashkar against the militants based in the nearby Darra Adamkhel. Around 100 villagers have been killed in these attacks. A few weeks ago, a suicide bombing at a funeral in the Matani area left 41 people dead.

APP adds from Islamabad: President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani, Minister for Interior Rehman Malik, Information Minister Firdous Ashiq Awan, Defence Minister Chaudhry Ahmad Mukhtar, Minister for Postal Services Sardar Muhammad Umar Gorgaij and MQM chief Altaf Hussain have condemned the blast in Matani in which innocent people lost their lives.

In separate statements, they said the government was determined to curbing the menace of terrorism and extremism. They prayed that the departed souls rest in eternal peace and the bereaved families find the courage to bear the loss with equanimity.