Roadside bomb kills nine in Pakistan – officials

At least nine people were killed, including women and children, and 13 others injured when a passenger vehicle struck a roadside bomb in Pakistan’s northwest tribal region bordering Afghanistan on Tuesday, officials said.

The blast tore through the heavily-loaded pickup truck in the Godar area of Kurram tribal district early in the morning, according to Irfan Ali, a local administration official in the area. Hospital officials said that the dead included an infant.

“Among them is a baby and another nine-year-old child. Two women were also killed,” Doctor Mujahid Khan, a senior health official in the district told AFP.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the bomb. The Kurram tribal district is known for sectarian clashes between Sunnis and Shiites, who make up roughly 20 percent of Pakistan’s population of 200 million, and it has also been a stronghold for the Pakistani Taliban as well as its factions.

Parachinar, the district capital, was the location of the first major militant attack in Pakistan in 2017, a marketplace bomb which killed 24 people in January and was claimed by the Pakistani Taliban.

The same group claimed a car bomb attack in the district in March that killed at least 22 people. The area also continues to suffer from a high casualty rate linked to landmines placed by Soviet forces in Pakistani border towns during their war in Afghanistan that began in 1979 and ended ten years later.

The Soviets planted the bombs as a means of intimidating local populations to prevent them joining an anti-communist uprising across the border.