Cop killed, lawmaker wounded in Pak attack

A policemen was killed and a local lawmaker was among eight wounded on Saturday in a suicide attack in Pakistan's troubled northwestern Kyhber Pakhtunkhaw province, which borders Afghanistan, officials said.

The suicide bomber struck as the former chief minister of the province, Aftab Sherpao, returned with his son and another lawmaker from a rally on the outskirts of Shabqadar town 35 kilometres (20 miles) northeast of the city of Peshawar.

"A policeman was killed and eight others were wounded including the provincial assembly member Muhammad Ali Khan in the suicide attack," provincial information minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain told AFP.

"The lawmaker is out of danger and being shifted to the provincial headquarters in Peshawar," Hussain said.
Police said the bomber struck when the security convoy escorting the political leaders left the rally venue.

"The suicide bomber walked in the security convoy and hit the vehicles," local police chief Nisar Khan Marwat told AFP.

Militants have killed more than 4,900 people across Pakistan since government troops raided an extremist mosque in Islamabad in July 2007.

A local leader of the Pakistani Taliban militia, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), claimed responsibility for the attack.

"We made this attack because Aftab Sherpao has cooperated with the government for an operation against us in the tribal areas," Omer Khalid, a local Taliban leader, told AFP by telephone from an undisclosed location.