Bomb Kills Two Pakistan Government Allies
A bomb killed two members of a Pakistani pro-government militia Saturday in a tribal region near the Afghanistan border, officials said.
The blast went off in Chamarkand town, 40 kilometers (25 miles) northwest of Khar, the main town of Bajaur tribal region in the northwest of the country.
"Two members of a pro-government tribal peace committee were killed when an improvised explosive device (IED) went off near them," local administration official Ghulam Saeedullah told Agence France Presse.
He said that the men were inspecting the site of an earlier IED blast when a second device went off.
Local tribal police officials also confirmed the incident and casualties.
The attack came two days after about a dozen insurgents attacked the homes of two tribal elders near Khar and later killed them.
Pakistan has for years been fighting homegrown Taliban insurgents in its northwestern border areas with Afghanistan.
A U.S.-led NATO combat mission across the border is due to withdraw next year after a 12-year Afghan Taliban insurgency.
Also Saturday, security agencies intercepted a truck in Pakistan's southwestern city of Quetta and recovered 50 rockets with fuses.
Local chief of paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC) Colonel Maqbool Ahmad told AFP that the rockets were hidden under piles of straw.
"We intercepted the truck, which was coming from the border town of Chaman on an intelligence tip off and arrested the driver after recovering 50 rockets with fuses," he said.
Quetta is the capital city of Baluchistan, which borders Iran and Afghanistan and is rife with Islamist militancy and a regional insurgency waged by separatists demanding political autonomy and a greater share of profits from the region's natural resources.
Quetta is also a flashpoint for sectarian violence between majority Sunni Muslims and minority Shiites, who account for 20 percent of Pakistan's 180 million population.
The city has seen the country's two bloodiest attacks so far this year.
At least 25 people were killed last Saturday when militants blew up a bus carrying female students in Quetta, and then stormed a hospital where survivors had been taken for treatment.
Source: Agence France Presse
| Copyright © 2012 Naharnet.com. All Rights Reserved. | https://www.naharnet.com/stories/en/87875 |