PESHAWAR: Amidst continued high alert in violence-hit Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and FATA, another suicide attack killed 15 and injured 25 in Kohat on Wednesday.
The bomber blew himself up close to a warehouse owned by an anti-Taliban militia leader and a bus stop in Tirah Bazaar.
Police said the bomber blew himself up at the door of a bus carrying passengers to the nearby Orakzai Agency. Kohat Commissioner Khalid Khan Omarzai confirmed to Pakistan Today that 15 people were killed and more than 20 were injured in the attack. He said the victims belonged to both Shia and Sunni sects.
“I was on the other side of the bus and leaving when a huge blast blew out the bus driver’s door. It hit my chest. I fell and the bus caught fire,” said Khalid Hussain, a 45-year-old driver from Orakzai with chest injuries. “It was a suicide blast,” Kohat police chief Dilawar Bangash said, adding that seven of the injured were in critical condition.
“The dead included one woman and three small children, aged between two and seven years,” Bangash said. The two-year-old boy had been sitting on his mother’s lap when they were both killed, the police chief said. He said the head and legs of the suicide bomber, aged around 15 to 16 years old, were recovered. Police said the attack gutted two motorbikes, a car and a van.
Separately, a few hours before the suicide attack in Tirah Bazaar, unidentified men picked up seven teachers, including two females of a government school. However, all the hostages were recovered after a brief encounter between the kidnappers and security forces. One policeman was also killed and several injured in the clash.
