PESHAWAR – Mine and bomb attacks targeting police in northwest Pakistan on Wednesday killed one person and injured 11, including nine officers, police reported.
In the first attack a donkey cart went over a mine buried by the roadside on the outskirts of Peshawar, police said.
“Both the donkey cart owner and donkey were killed. Basically the mine was planted to target police,” Kalam Khan, said a senior police official.
In the second incident a remote control bomb hit a police patrol pick-up, injuring 11, in the village of Darsamand, in Hangu district.
“Nine policemen and two passers-by were were wounded in this bomb blast. Taliban militants are responsible for this attack,” Abdur Rashid Khan, district police chief said.
Hangu lies 150 kilometres (90 miles) south of Peshawar and has a history of sectarian clashes between Pakistan’s majority Sunni Muslims and minority Shiites.
The area borders the deeply conservative tribal region of Kurram and Orakzai, a lawless area on the Afghan border where entrenched militants oppose jobs and education for women.
More than 4,000 people have died in suicide and bomb attacks across Pakistan since government forces launched an attack against militants in a mosque in Islamabad in 2007.