News / Pakistan

Roadside blast leaves 3 dead in Pakistan

Wednesday, 23 December 2015 7:13 PM [ Last Update: Thursday, 24 December 2015 5:45 AM ]

Pakistani residents gather at the site of a bomb blast in the northwestern town of Bannu on November 26, 2015.(© AFP)

At least three people, including two children, have reportedly been killed in a bomb explosion in a restive Pakistani region near the Afghan border.

The incident happened on Wednesday when a vehicle hit a roadside bomb in the Mohmand tribal area, where the military has been battling al-Qaeda and Taliban-linked militants for over a decade.

“An improvised explosive device (IED) planted along the roadside exploded as a vehicle carrying five people including a driver passed by, killing two children aged eight and 10 and the driver on the spot,” a senior local administration official, Naveed Akbar, said.

He said two others were injured in the attack.

The Pakistani official said that security forces have launched an investigation into the incident.

On Monday, three people were killed and two others, including a senior Pakistani army official, were wounded after two separate bomb blasts hit the same area.

Although no group or individual has claimed responsibility for the bombings so far, such attacks are usually carried out by pro-Taliban militants operating in the country.

Pakistan has been engaged in a major offensive against militant hideouts across the troubled northwestern tribal regions since June 2014, when a deadly raid on the Karachi International Airport ended the government’s faltering peace talks with the pro-Taliban militants.

Pakistan’s army intensified its military operations after militants killed over 150 people, most of them children, in an armed assault on a school in the northwestern city of Peshawar in December 2014.

This comes as the intelligence service of the country known as ISI, is said to have been a staunch supporter of Taliban.

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