Bomb blast kills 20 in Pakistan

Twenty people, including 14 security troops, have been killed and 14 others injured in a series of roadside bomb blasts and firing in northwest and southwest Pakistan on Saturday, officials said.

Eleven Para military troops were killed and 8 injured in two separate bomb blasts in Khyber Agency, which borders war-stricken Afghanistan.

The blasts -one after another- hit the security vehicles who provide security to anti-polio workers in Lashora town of Khyber Agency, Shahab Ali Shah, the administrator of Khyber agency, better known as 'Political Agent', told reporters.

The dead included one child, Shah said.

The blasts are interpreted as revenge for the killing of three militants belonging to a pro-Taliban Lashkar-e-Islam group on Thursday, by security forces.

“Three security personnel were killed on the spot, while 8 succumbed to their wounds at the hospital”, Shah said.

“The anti-polio workers remained unhurt as they took refuge in a nearby house after the blasts,” he added.

Terrorists also fired at the security personnel after the blasts, however it is premature to say how many were killed in firing and how many in blasts, Political Agent said.

Khyber agency is one of the seven semi-autonomous tribal areas in Pakistan along Pak-Afghan border, which are considered strongholds of Taliban.

In another incident, three security personnel were killed and 6 injured in a roadside blast near a security convoy in southwestern Baluchistan province.

The incident occurred in the remote Washuk district, located some 300 kilometers north of Quetta, the provincial capital.

“The security convoy was moving towards Qallat (a nearby district) when it was struck by an IED (Improvised Explosive Device), planted along the highway, ” Abdul Wasey, a spokesman for Frontier Constabulary, a Para military force in the troubled districts of mineral-rich Baluchistan province to maintain law and order, told Anadolu Agency (AA).

No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack, however security forces have pointed the finger at Baluch separatists who have been fighting for the ‘liberation’ of the province; according to them, the area has been forcibly incarcerated in Pakistan since 1947, at the time of partition of India.