Officials said the kaboom damaged the Masjid Sher Ali in Shahbkhel village but the gun-hung tough guys caused more damage when they blew up three bridges, a girls` school and a portion of a technical college in the adjacent Khyber Agency.
They said the five kilogrammes of explosives planted in the mosque went off with a big bang at 11am, destroying the boundary wall of the mosque and creating big cracks in the concrete roof of ablution place.
A police officer said that it was a time device targeting the Friday congregation. Fortunately it went
kaboom!prematurely. He said that the gun-hung tough guys seemed to have come from a nearby locality.
Eyewitness Naseer Amer said that he was working in the nearby fields when the blast occurred and filled the area with dust and smoke. He said that local people avoided to visit the mosque till arrival of the police.
Head of Bazidkhel Amn Lashkar Fahimur Rehman said that the mosque had been constructed a few months ago. Claiming that the beturbanned goon group, Lashkar-i-Islam, was behind the blast, he said that the Amn Lashkar activists had successfully stopped movement of the beturbanned goons, but non-cooperation of police forced them to abandon their efforts.
He said that police had registered several FIRs against the peace body workers and the peace Lashkar was likely to withdraw its support to police against beturbanned goons. "We nabbed several bully boyz and handed them over to police, but they were freed," Mr Fahim alleged and added that instead of any support the police had registered FIRs against him and his colleagues.
Our Correspondent in Landikotal reported that gun-hung tough guys in Bara tehsil of
Khyber Agency destroyed three bridges, a girls` school in Jamrud and an under-construction room of the technical college during the last 24 hours.Sources said that two bridges were destroyed in Akkakhel area -- one at Meeran Talab and another near the telephone exchange -- while another bridge connecting Bara bazaar with Malikdin Khel area was blown up in Mandai Kas locality.
The powerful blasts, they said, completely destroyed all the three bridges, rendering them useless.
The gun-hung tough guys also blew up an under-construction room of the government technical college at Dogra in Bara tehsil.
All the educational institutions in Bara are closed since the start of military operation in September 2009.
In Sheen Tang area of Jamrud tehsil, gun-hung tough guys damaged parts of a two-room girls` school in a predawn sabotage act. It was for the first time that at a government school was targeted in Jamrud.
Meanwhile,
...back at the secret hideout...
police and Frontier Constabulary conducted a search operation in different parts of Akkakhel and nabbed 19 suspected beturbanned goons, including a local commander Shahbaz of a banned beturbanned goon organisation.
In a separate incident, unidentified gunnies kidnapped a young man from Spin Qabar area on Friday. The kidnapped man was identified as Naeem son of Mohammad Yousaf.