ISLAMABAD/PESHAWAR, 14 February 2008 — A roadside bomb blast ripped through an election candidate’s car in northwestern Pakistan yesterday, killing two people and wounding two others, police said.

The candidate from a pro-Taleban party was among those wounded in the blast, which happened as the car left a political rally in the restive Swat Valley near the Afghan border, they said.

The attack was the fourth in the past week targeting election candidates or rallies, and came amid a wave of violence since the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto at a rally in December.

“Election candidate Mufti Hussain Ahmed was returning from an election rally when his vehicle was targeted by a remote control roadside bomb,” local police officer Wasiat Khan told AFP by telephone from the scene.

He said one person was killed instantly and another died in hospital. The candidate, who is standing for both the national and provincial assemblies, was wounded but out of danger, he added.

The blast caused a two and a half feet deep crater, he said.

“I reached the spot after the blast and saw the car of Mufti Ahmed. It was the lone car they had targeted,” Khan said.

Officials said Ahmed was from a dissident faction of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party, a radical group which backed Afghanistan’s hard-line Taleban militia during its 1996-2001 reign.

In recent violence, a suicide bomber killed 25 people at a rally of an opposition ethnic Pashtun party in northwestern Pakistan on Saturday.

Nine others died in another suicide attack in a tribal area on Monday that targeted the convoy of a political candidate.

And nine people were wounded on Tuesday when a bomb fixed to a bicycle exploded outside a candidate’s office in southwestern Pakistan.

The country’s election commission Wednesday postponed elections in one constituency of South Waziristan tribal district because of the security situation in the area, state television reported.

The Swat valley was a famed tourist spot until the middle of last year when it became a flash point for violence between the military and followers of a hard-line pro-Taleban cleric who tried to establish Shariah law.

The military launched an offensive in the Swat valley in November against the cleric, Maulana Fazlullah, killing and arresting hundreds of militants but failing to capture Fazlullah.

Taleban Deny Kidnapping Envoy

Omar denied yesterday the Taleban’s involvement in the disappearance of the country’s ambassador to Afghanistan.

“We have no links with the disappearance of Tariq Azizuddin, Pakistan’s ambassador to Kabul. We don’t know anything about that,” Omar said.

Pakistani security forces are searching the area and officials are reluctant to say if Azizuddin has been kidnapped, though Afghan President Hamid Karzai said the envoy had been taken hostage.

— With input from agencies