Burqa clad bomber kills 15 in Bannu

BANNU—At least 15 people including 4 policemen were killed in a suicide attack in Bannu on Monday. A suicide bomber was traveling in an auto rickshaw and detonated explosives near a police van in a crowded place at Nizaam Bazaar at Abshar Chowk of Bannu district in NWFP, according to the police. Inter Service Public Relations Director General Maj. Gen Waheed Arshad was quoted by local TV channel as saying that up to 15 people including 11 civilians including 3 women and four policemen were killed in the attack and around 20 were injured.
The injured have been shifted to Bannu District Hospital in the blast and some of them are stated to be in critical condition who have been shifted to Peshawar. Emergency has been declared at the hospital. It is feared that the casualties could rise. According to a Private TV channel report a head was also found at the site of the blast, which is believed to be that of a suicide bomber.
Nearby shops were also damaged and the injured also include some students and teachers. As soon as the news of the blast was heard senior officials district administration and a large contingent of police arrived on the spit and closed the chowk for all kind of traffic No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
NWFP Governor Lieutenant General (Retd) Ali Muhammad Jan Aurakzai has strongly condemned the suicide bomb attack in Bannu on Monday and said that such subversive activities were meant to disturb the peaceful atmosphere, and create a state of anarchy in the country.
In his condolence message here on Monday, the Governor said that elements involved in such heinous crimes were neither serving the cause of Islam nor were they intended in well being of the nation. Rather they are the enemies of humanity and morality and they must have to be condemned by every patriotic citizen, he added.
The Governor expressed the confidence that the law enforcing agencies would succeed in apprehending the culprits involved in the subversive activities and bring them to justice. Aurakzai expressed his heartfelt sympathies with the affected families and prayed for eternal peace of the departed souls and the early recovery of the injured. Fifteen people were killed in the attack including four policemen and 11 civilians. A suicide bomber disguised in a woman’s burqa blew himself up at a busy police checkpost in northwest Pakistan Monday, killing at least 16 people including four policemen, officials said.
The blast happened on the outskirts of Bannu, a key garrison town near Pakistan’s troubled tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, where the army is battling Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants.
It was the latest in a string of deadly attacks in Pakistan since government troops stormed the Al-Qaeda-linked Red Mosque in Islamabad in July, and comes days before President Pervez Musharraf seeks re-election.
“A man disguised in a burqa got out of an autorickshaw when police stopped the vehicle for a search at a checkpoint. He then blew himself up,” police officer Asar Islam told. Examination of remains “confirmed that it was a male suicide bomber” wearing women’s clothing, while initial reports of a possible female attacker had been discounted, Bannu police chief Ameer Hamza Mahsud said.—Agencies