13 die as bomb blast targets police van in Pakistan
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A senior police officer and 12 other people were killed in a bomb attack in Pakistan's restive northwest on Tuesday, police and doctors said.
The bomb, targeting a police vehicle, also injured 14 others in the outskirts of Dera Ismail Khan, a main city in the newly- renamed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, said Dr Nasir Malik, in charge of the emergency department at the main hospital.
Deputy Superintendent Police Iqbal Khan, his guard and driver were also killed in the attack, Malik said. He said that three children and a woman were also among the dead.
Iqbal Khan was the police chief of nearby Kolachi area, which is known for Talibanization and militants presence, local sources told Xinhua.
Soon after Iqbal's vehicle came out of his home at around 0900 local time (0400 GMT) in the relatively peaceful town of Najafabad in the suburbs of the main Dera Ismail Khan city, it was ambushed resulting in deaths and injuries to policemen and passers-by in the vicinity, police sources said.
Police officials said that a 4 to 6 kg bomb was planted on a bicycle at the height similar to the police vehicle passenger level. The splinters spread into a wide area causing maximum damage in the morning crowding streets.
No group claimed responsibility for the attack. But the authorities blame such attacks on Taliban militants.
Suspected militants regularly target security forces and police in their bloody campaign against the government.
Police said that the bomb was attached to a bicycle and the explosives were device detonated through remote control device at the Kachi Paind Khan neighborhood.
The police van was completely destroyed, witnesses said.
Doctors said that at least one injured is in critical condition and nine injured are in stable condition.
Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani strongly condemned the blast, deplored the loss of lives and ordered inquiry into the incident, the Prime Minister's office said.
D.I. Khan district is a gateway and supply line to the continuing operation against militants by security forces in Pakistan's troubled Waziristan tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.
The district is inhabited by different ethnic groups including Pushtun, Seraiki and Hindko speakers. The non-Pushtu speakers from the area had diligently participated in recent violent protests for a separate province for non-Pushtu speakers and against the renaming of the northwest province as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Many people lost lives in the violent protests.
