10 killed in explosion in NW Pakistan

Press TV, Friday, 16 July 2010, 07:32:36 GMT

The tribal region of Khyber on the Afghan border has been the site of ongoing clashes between militant rival groups.

At least ten people have been killed and 20 others injured in a powerful bomb blast in a weekly bazaar in Pakistan's tribal region of Khyber on the Afghan border.

Officials and local sources told Press TV that the explosion took place on Friday in a weekly bazaar in Mehbran village of Kuki Khel tribal area in the Khyber agency near the Afghan border.

The death toll is expected to rise as injured are said to be in critical conditions.

Local sources said a key commander of the Lashkar-e-Islam militant group is also among those killed in the blast.

No group has claimed responsibility for the blast yet.

Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani condemned the attack and asked authorities to investigate the incident.

Pakistan's military has recently carried out several operations to drive out Taliban militants and other groups from the mountainous region.

Khyber is home to a major supply route for NATO and US troops in Afghanistan.


MVZ/MVZ

NATO containers destroyed in Pakistan

Press TV, Friday, 16 July 2010, 04:25:53 GMT

The bulk of the equipment required by US-led troops based in Afghanistan is shipped through the troubled Khyber tribal region in northwest Pakistan and southwestern Baluchistan province.

Four NATO supply containers have been destroyed after they were set on fire by unidentified attackers in Pakistan's southwest province of Baluchistan.

Police officials told Press TV that unknown militants attacked the NATO supply containers in the town of Mach in the Bolan district near Baluchistan's capital city of Quetta on Thursday night.

More than 400 NATO trucks and containers have been torched or plundered over the last four months in various areas of the Khyber, Pakhtoonkhwa and Baluchistan provinces of Pakistan.

Pakistan's lawless tribal belt on the Afghan border remains a haven for militants who fled the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan.

Pakistani authorities have deployed heavy contingents of police and military forces on all major arteries in the area to curb militant attacks on supplies trucked to Afghanistan.

NATO and the US forces are dependent on Pakistan for supplies, as about 80 percent of such cargo passes through the country.

The rampant attacks have forced NATO to look for alternative routes, including through Central Asia.

According to Xinhua news agency, Thursday's attack on the NATO supply convoy is the third of its kind in 72 hours.

MVZ/JG/MVZ

Pakistan market bomb kills six: officials

AFP, July 16, 2010

A bomb blast ripped through a busy market selling second-hand cars in a Pakistan's tribal district of Khyber on Friday, killing at least six civilians, officials said.

The explosion rocked Kuki Khel town in Khyber, on the NATO supply route into Afghanistan and part of Pakistan's tribal belt that Washington considers an Al-Qaeda headquarters and the most dangerous region on Earth.

"At least six people were killed and another 16 wounded in the explosion," a senior local administration official, Rehan Gul Khattak, told AFP.

The timed device was planted in a ditch in a crowded market where people sell and purchase second-hand cars, he said.

Top Khyber administration official, Shafeerullah Khan also confirmed that the nature of the attack and casualties.

Officials described the area as a stronghold of Lashkar-e-Islam, a homegrown militant group that has carried out Islamist vigilante-style campaigns, kidnappings, shootings and attacks in Khyber.

The group has been the target of Pakistani military operations.