PESHAWSAR/QUETTA: Two separate bomb attacks targeting security forces in Pakistan killed 19 people on Friday, officials said, the latest violence to hit peace talks between the government and Taleban militants.
The suicide bomber blew himself up in front of a police vehicle killing people including a woman and a child, police said.
A suicide attack in the suburbs of the northwestern city of Peshawar, close to the lawless tribal areas that are a haven for Taleban and other militants, was followed a few hours later by a bombing in the southwestern city of Quetta.
The attacks took place as the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif tries to engage Pakistani Taleban militants in talks to hammer out a permanent cease-fire agreement and end years of violence.
A series of attacks and counter-attacks by insurgents and government forces has dampened expectations that peace talks could ever yield any result.
In Peshawar, police chief Faisal Kamran said the target of the attack was an armored personnel carrier.
In Quetta, “ten people were killed and 31 injured. Around eight are in critical condition,” the city police chief Abdul Razzaq Cheema told AFP, adding that eight to 10 kilos of explosives were used in the bomb.
Doctor Rashid Jamal at the government-run civil hospital in Quetta confirmed the number of dead and wounded.
The city has been hit by numerous attacks in recent years, including two devastating bombings early last year targeting minority Shiite Muslims that killed nearly 180 people.
The latest armed insurgency rose up in 2004 and separatist groups still regularly attack Pakistani forces.
Rights groups accuse the military and intelligence agencies of kidnapping and killing suspected Baluch rebels before leaving their bodies by the roadside. Friday’s attack was the deadliest attack to hit the province since Jan. 22, when a bomb targeting a bus carrying people returning from Iran killed 24 people.
The militant outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), regarded as the most extreme terror group in Pakistan and accused of killing hundreds of people since its emergence in the 1990s, claimed responsibility for that attack. No one claimed responsibility for Friday’s attacks.
The Taleban leadership, which seems keen to hold the talks, has condemned previous attacks, distancing itself from the violence.
This has spurred speculation that the central command was not in control of the many splinter groups operating in the country, and reaching a peace deal with one of them would not stop the violence.
“The police were deployed in the armored personnel carrier to provide security during Friday prayers outside mosques when it came under attack,” he said. “The policemen luckily remained safe but innocent people were killed and injured.”
Jamil Shah, a spokesman for the city’s biggest hospital, said at least 30 were injured. Another blast on Friday in the city of Quetta killed at least five people, but there were no immediate details, Pakistani television reported.
The suicide bomber blew himself up in front of a police vehicle killing people including a woman and a child, police said.
A suicide attack in the suburbs of the northwestern city of Peshawar, close to the lawless tribal areas that are a haven for Taleban and other militants, was followed a few hours later by a bombing in the southwestern city of Quetta.
The attacks took place as the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif tries to engage Pakistani Taleban militants in talks to hammer out a permanent cease-fire agreement and end years of violence.
A series of attacks and counter-attacks by insurgents and government forces has dampened expectations that peace talks could ever yield any result.
In Peshawar, police chief Faisal Kamran said the target of the attack was an armored personnel carrier.
In Quetta, “ten people were killed and 31 injured. Around eight are in critical condition,” the city police chief Abdul Razzaq Cheema told AFP, adding that eight to 10 kilos of explosives were used in the bomb.
Doctor Rashid Jamal at the government-run civil hospital in Quetta confirmed the number of dead and wounded.
The city has been hit by numerous attacks in recent years, including two devastating bombings early last year targeting minority Shiite Muslims that killed nearly 180 people.
The latest armed insurgency rose up in 2004 and separatist groups still regularly attack Pakistani forces.
Rights groups accuse the military and intelligence agencies of kidnapping and killing suspected Baluch rebels before leaving their bodies by the roadside. Friday’s attack was the deadliest attack to hit the province since Jan. 22, when a bomb targeting a bus carrying people returning from Iran killed 24 people.
The militant outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), regarded as the most extreme terror group in Pakistan and accused of killing hundreds of people since its emergence in the 1990s, claimed responsibility for that attack. No one claimed responsibility for Friday’s attacks.
The Taleban leadership, which seems keen to hold the talks, has condemned previous attacks, distancing itself from the violence.
This has spurred speculation that the central command was not in control of the many splinter groups operating in the country, and reaching a peace deal with one of them would not stop the violence.
“The police were deployed in the armored personnel carrier to provide security during Friday prayers outside mosques when it came under attack,” he said. “The policemen luckily remained safe but innocent people were killed and injured.”
Jamil Shah, a spokesman for the city’s biggest hospital, said at least 30 were injured. Another blast on Friday in the city of Quetta killed at least five people, but there were no immediate details, Pakistani television reported.
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