pantheistic antipodes: Car bomb in Pakistani market kills 17

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Car bomb in Pakistani market kills 17

At least 17 people are dead and dozens wounded when a car bomb detonated in a crowded market in Peshawar, Pakistan. NBCNews.com's Dara Brown reports.

By The Associated Press

PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- A car bomb exploded Monday in a crowded market in Pakistan's troubled northwest tribal region, killing 17 people and wounding more than 40 others, officials said.

The bomb went off next to the women's waiting area of a bus stop, which is located near the office of one of the top political officials in the Khyber tribal area, said Hidayat Khan, a local government official. It is unclear if the office was the target.

The 17 dead included five boys and two women, said Abdul Qudoos, a doctor at a local hospital in Jamrud town, where the attack occurred. At least 44 people were wounded, he said.

Local TV footage showed several cars and shops in the market that were badly damaged. Residents threw buckets of water on burning vehicles as rescue workers transported the wounded to the hospital.

Qazi Rauf / AP

A man walks past a burning vehicle after a car bomb exploded outside a government office in the Pakistani tribal area of Khyber on Monday.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing.

10 Afghan girls collecting firewood killed in blast

Khyber is home to various Islamist militant groups, including the Pakistani Taliban, who have waged a bloody insurgency against the government for the past few years.

The army has carried out offensives against the Taliban in most parts of the tribal region, including Khyber, but militants continue to carry out regular attacks in the country.

Mohammad Sajjad / AP

A wounded man receives treatment at a local hospital after being injured in a bomb blast in Khyber on Monday.

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Airport attacked
Ten Taliban militants attacked the military side of an international airport in Peshawar on Saturday night with rockets and car bombs, killing four people and wounding more than 40 others. Five of the militants were killed during the attack, and five others died the next day in a gunbattle with security forces.

Senior al-Qaida leader killed in drone strike in Pakistan, jihadis, US officials say

Also Monday, gunmen killed a provincial government spokesman in the southwest Pakistan in an apparent sectarian attack, and then shot to death two police officers nearby, police said.

The attackers shot dead Khadim Hussain Noori in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province, said local police official Hamid Shakeel. Noori was the provincial spokesman and also a Shiite Muslim.

As the gunmen were speeding away on a motorcycle, they killed two police officers and wounded a third, said Shakeel. Baluchistan has experienced a spike in sectarian killings in the past year as radical Sunni Muslims have targeted Shiites, who they consider heretics.

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The province is also the scene of a decades-long insurgency by Baluch nationalists who demand greater autonomy and a larger share of the province's natural resources.?