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Join date : 2010-09-25
 |  Subject: Blast kills Pakistan police chief  Wed Dec 08, 2010 10:49 pm | |
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A paramilitary commander has been killed, along with three other people, by a suicide attack in northwest Pakistan.
The bomber detonated explosives on Wednesday at a busy market in the city of Peshawar.
Police confirmed that Sifwat Ghayur, the head of the Frontier Constabulary, was the target of the attack. Three of his bodyguards were also killed in the blast.
"[Ghayur] was leaving his office when a suicide bomber blew himself up," Qutrat Ullah Khan, a police official in Peshawar, said.
The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, the umbrella organisation of armed groups in Pakistan, claimed responsibility for the bombing, according to the AFP news agency.
"We killed him, he was our target... all such officers who are active against us will suffer the same fate," Azam Tariq, a spokesman for the group, said. "He was conducting different operations against us ... one of our [suicide bombers] has done this job."
The Frontier Constabulary assists other police and military units, and has been involved in a number of operations against Taliban fighters over the last few years.
"We have lost a very brave and able official in this cowardly attack," said Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the information minister for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, of which Peshawar is the capital.
High-profile attack
At least 10 people, mostly civilians, were also wounded in the explosion, Al Jazeera's Imran Khan reported.
Pakistan's Express 24/7 television channel broadcast CCTV footage of the explosion, which shows Ghayur's car waiting in traffic at an intersection when the bomb went off.
Police officials in Peshawar have said the bomber was likely on foot, and that he waited for Ghayur's car to approach the intersection.
Peshawar has been the site of many deadly attacks over the last few years, but this is the first high-profile attack in several months.
The last flare-up of violence in Peshawar came in April, when a suicide bomber struck a market, killing more than 25 people. That bombing came two weeks after gunmen attacked the US consulate in the city. | |
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