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| India-Pakistan |
| Blast kills 27 in Pakistani city of Peshawar |
| 2010-04-20 |
| [Al Arabiya Latest] A suicide bomber attacked Pakistani police guarding a protest rally organized by the Jamaat-e-Islami religious and political party against power cuts in the city of Peshawar on Monday killing 27 people, police and government officials said. Islamist militants fighting the government of nuclear-armed Pakistan have launched a string of bomb attacks in Peshawar, which is the gateway to Afghanistan, killing hundreds of people over the past year. The latest ripped through a busy market known as Qissa Khawani Bazaar (Storytellers' Bazaar) as the protest against power cuts organized by Jamaat-e-Islami was breaking up, officials said. "A man blew himself up when policemen were sitting in their vehicles after the rally," said provincial Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain. Several officials of the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) party, which organized the protest, were among the dead, said members of the party, which has a record of sympathizing with Islamists. Deputy Superintendent Police Gulfat Hussain and vice president of Peshawar chapter of the party Haji Dost Muhammad were killed in the blast while provincial secretary of the party Shabbir Ahmed Khan and another local leader Sabir Hussain Shah suffered injuries. Hours after the blast, hospital sources said 27 people were killed and 40 people were wounded. Ambulances with red lights flashing raced through the streets as dusk settled on the city. "We were returning to our police station when the blast went off," a slightly wounded policeman, Riaz Khan, told Reuters. "I saw bodies and limbs scattered all about when I turned around." It was the second blast in the city on Monday. Earlier, a six-year-old school boy was killed and five boys and two other people were wounded when explosives went off outside their school in the city, doctors said. Security forces have made significant gains against the militants in offensives over the past year, clearing the fighters from strongholds in the Swat valley and in the regions of South Waziristan and Bajaur on the Afghan border. But the militants have demonstrated time and again they have the capacity to strike back with gun and bomb attacks. |
| Posted by:Fred |