Bomb kills three children in wave of Pakistan unrest

Source: AFP

By Lehaz Ali (AFP) – 2 days ago

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Three children were killed when a bomb exploded Wednesday in a village in northwest Pakistan, while other unrest blamed on Taliban militants left 10 people injured and a militia leader dead.

Three boys -- two brothers and their cousin aged between eight and twelve -- were killed as they grazed their families' goats in Dir district, where the military last year embarked on an offensive to drive out Taliban fighters.

"It was a timed device. Three children were killed on the spot. Apparently it is an act of terrorism. The militants want to create fear and terrify the residents," district police chief Raoof Khan told AFP.

In a similar incident earlier this month in northwest Tank district, one boy was killed and five other children wounded when the youngsters mistook a mine for a football and began playing with it, causing it to explode.

It was unclear in that incident if the bomb was planted by militants or unexploded ordnance inadvertently imported from Afghanistan as scrap metal.

More than 2,900 people have been killed since July 2007 in violence across Pakistan, most blamed on the Taliban, and suicide blasts and other attacks are increasingly targeting civilians, with children often the victims.

Analysts have warned that the Taliban may be extending their reach as multiple military offensives dislodge them from their northwest strongholds.

Early Wednesday morning, ten people were injured when a bomb exploded as security forces tried to defuse the device in Pakistani-administered Kashmir, a disputed Himalayan region on the Pakistan-India border.

"Ten people including three policemen and four civil defence personnel were injured," said Sajjad Hussain, a senior local police official, adding that the three other casualties were civilians.

"This is the same wave of terrorism and militancy which continues in the whole of Pakistan," he added.

On January 6, a suicide bomber killed four Pakistani soldiers near the demarcation line with India, and officials blamed that attack on the Taliban.

In the past, such attacks had concentrated in the northwest and major cities rather than the northern mountains and eastern border with India.

The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan movement is headquartered in the rugged northwest tribal district of South Waziristan, and in October last year the military sent 30,000 troops into the area to try and flush them out.

The military says it is making progress and says insurgents are fleeing to other parts of the tribal belt. On Tuesday and Wednesday military aircraft shelled Bajaur district at the tip of the zone bordering Afghanistan.

"We have reports that at least six militants were killed and four wounded," Firamosh Khan, an administrative official, told AFP by telephone.

Also in Bajaur, police discovered the bullet-riddled body of a militia leader allied with the government, the latest in a string of killings of tribal elders who speak out against the Taliban.

"He was kidnapped on Monday along with two other tribesmen. Today (Wednesday), we found his dead body," said Naseeb Shah, a local administrative official, blaming the Taliban movement.

In a separate incident, at least 12 militants and a paramilitary Frontier Corps soldier were killed during a clash in Bajaur's Chinar village, local administration official Abdul Kabir said.