ISLAMABAD, 21 August 2007 — A suicide attacker detonated his explosive-laden van at a security post in northwestern Pakistan yesterday, killing at least four troops and wounding at least eight others, officials said.
Local militants claimed responsibility for the attack.
“A bomber rammed an explosive-laden car into a Frontier Corps. check post and killed three soldiers,” said Mahmood Alam, a police officer in Thal town, 300 km west of Islamabad, in North West Frontier Province.
Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad confirmed the car bombing, saying four soldiers were killed and 12 wounded.
The police officer said the attack killed four Frontier Constabulary troops and wounded eight. It was not immediately possible to reconcile the different death tolls.
Abdul Hayee Ghazi, who claimed to speak for local pro-Taleban militants in the area, called an Associated Press reporter to claim responsibility for the bombing. He said 20 people had been killed.
“We carried out the attack near Thal,” he said.
Islamic militants with links to Al-Qaeda and the Taleban regularly carry out attacks in the region, and often call media to claim responsibility.
The military was not immediately available for comment on Ghazi’s claim.
The security post targeted is on a road connecting Thal with Miranshah, the main town of North Waziristan tribal area where violence has increased since militants in the region renounced a peace deal with the authorities last month.
Almost daily attacks have targeted security forces since the agreement was scrapped after militants accused authorities of violating it by deploying more troops to the region.
In other attacks Monday, militants fired three rockets at a base housing army and paramilitary troops in the North Waziristan town of Mir Ali, a security official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of his job. Two rockets landed in a field near the base and one struck a soldier’s residence inside, injuring a woman, the official said.
