PESHAWAR/ISLAMABAD, 26 October 2007 — A blast ripped through a security forces vehicle in northwest Pakistan yesterday killing 30 people and wounding dozens more, officials said. The attack in scenic Swat valley in the North West Frontier Province was the latest in a wave of violence targeting the military since government troops stormed the Al-Qaeda-linked Red Mosque in Islamabad in July.

The blast comes just one day after Pakistan Army deployed more than 2,000 troops to the area to bolster efforts to stem the rising violence, which is linked to pro-Taleban militants.

The truck — carrying paramilitary soldiers and packed with ammunition — was traveling on a road outside the valley’s main city of Mingora when the explosion occurred, a security official said.

“Thirty people were killed in the explosion including 17 paramilitary soldiers. The damage was high because the truck was packed with ammunition,” the official told AFP.

Swat Mayor Fazlur Rehman said most of the dead were paramilitary soldiers.

“At least 30 people have died and most of the bodies are completely burned, they are beyond recognition,” Rehman said.

“The blast was so powerful that it destroyed 10 shops and hit a three-wheeler (rickshaw) killing all passengers inside it,” he added.

The government said 20 people were dead but warned the figure may go up.

“Some injured are in critical condition and the death toll may rise,” Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Cheema said.

A Mingora-based TV  journalist  Shaukat Khan  told  Arab  News the blast took  place  near a  camp  of the paramilitary Frontier Corps in the afternoon. He  said no one claimed responsibility for the attack. Among  the injured was a child. Bodies  and  injured  persons were  shifted to Saidu  Sharif Military  Hospital, Shaukat said.

He said there were rumors in the morning that a few suicide bombers had entered Swat.

Security sources said a suicide bomber had detonated his explosives near the truck, but Cheema said the vehicle’s cargo could have triggered the explosion.

“The nature of the blast is not clear and it is being ascertained. There was ammunition in the truck which caused the damage,” Cheema told AFP.

Most of the attacks in Pakistan since the Red Mosque raid have been suicide blasts that have killed more than 400 people, according to an AFP tally.

The Swat valley was once one of Pakistan’s premier tourist attractions, but the area in the conservative province bordering Afghanistan has become a stronghold of banned group Tehreek Nifaz-e-Shariat Mohammadi (TNSM).

The group, led by radical cleric Maulana Fazlullah, has close ties to pro-Taleban fighters who have been mounting attacks on government officials and security forces in the area.

A doctor at a local hospital said 10 bodies had been brought in so far, along with 35 wounded. “Some of the bodies are charred,” Nisar Khan told AFP.

The truck caught fire immediately after the explosion in Nawakilli area on the outskirts of Mingora, and firefighters struggled to contain the blaze, senior police officer Akbar Ali said.

The military said Wednesday that it had deployed the extra troops to the Swat valley in a bid to improve law and order in the troubled region. A local government official also warned Wednesday that 400 militants under Fazlullah’s command had been attacking local security forces.

Local Home Secretary Badshah Gul Wazir told a news conference in the provincial capital Peshawar that the TNSM group was also trying to seize control of dozens of villages. TNSM was banned by President Pervez Musharraf in 2002 after it sent more than 10,000 volunteers to fight in Afghanistan against US forces who led an invasion to oust the country’s hard-line Taleban regime.

The army said the deployment would curb the activities of Fazlullah, who reportedly has used FM radio broadcasts to call for holy war against Pakistani authorities. Checkpoints manned jointly by paramilitary Frontier Corps, troops and local police are to “ensure law and order, to assist the civil administration and ensure that Fazlullah and his band of criminals stop terrorizing innocent civilians,” army spokesman Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad said on Wednesday.

Some 6,000 of Fazlullah’s supporters, many carrying weapons, poured into a schoolyard less than 10 kilometers on Wednesday from where the soldiers were deployed, vowing to back the cleric.