Suicide attack kills 10 in northwest Pakistan: official

 

A suicide bomber detonated his explosives at the office of a radical Islamic group in northwest Pakistan Thursday, killing 10 people and wounding around a dozen, a security official said.

"The bomber entered the office and blew himself up among dozens of workers of the organisation," a senior security official told AFP.

The bomber targeted the office of the group called Tanzeem Amar Bil-maruf wal Nahi Al Munkar (Organisation for Promotion of Virtue and Suppression of Vice), in Khyber district near the provincial capital Peshawar.

It was the second attack in less than a week after Taliban rebels killed four people including two policemen in a car bomb in the northwestern city of Mardan.

The Mardan attack broke an almost six-week lull in militant attacks in Pakistan which was plagued by a wave of unprecedented violence in the past year that claimed more than 1,000 lives.

An official of the shadowy group also confirmed the attack and said the bomber was a teenager who wanted to kill the head of the group, Haji Namdar, who escaped unhurt.

Local officials said it was the first attack on a pro-Taliban outfit which could be linked to internal turf rivalry between local Taliban groups in the tribal region, a known hub of Taliban and Al Qaeda militants. (AFP)