By Aamir Latif
PESHAWAR
A powerful bomb blast targeting security forces in Pakistan’s north-western city of Peshawar killed five people, local officials said.
A suicide bomber who had targeted a senior commander in the Frontier Corps was among the dead, Provincial Information Minister Mushtaq Ghani said. The commander escaped but another member of the security forces and a woman were killed.
The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a coalition of various insurgent groups in Pakistan, has claimed the responsibility for Tuesday’s suicide attack in northwestern Peshawar city, killing five persons.
As police announced the death toll had risen to five including a member of security forces, and the suicide bomber himself, Shahidullah Shahid, a Taliban spokesman said in a statement that the suicide attack was meant for killing a senior army officer, Brigadier Khalid Javed. He narrowly escaped.
Shahid said the attack was a reaction to the ongoing military onslaught in restive North Waziristan in which over 1250 militants have reportedly been killed in airstrikes and clashes with the army, since June 15.
Tuesday morning’s explosion was the first terrorist attack in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhawa province bordering Afghanistan, in several months. The city has previously been a favored target of Taliban fighters.
Ghani said the initial investigation showed an explosive-laden vehicle driven into a security convoy as it passed.
Doctors at Lady Reading Hospital described the condition of three injured in the blast as critical.
The detonation was heard up to 2km away, shattering windows and destroying vehicles close to the explosion.
No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack but security forces are confident it is the work of Taliban militants who have already threatened to retaliate against the government for the ongoing military operation against militants in North Waziristan.
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