'16 killed' in blast outside courthouse
A doctor said 16 people have been killed in an explosion outside a courthouse in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar.
Today’s blast was the latest in a wave to hit the city in recent weeks in apparent retaliation for an army offensive against the Taliban in the nearby Afghan border region.
The doctor, Saib Gul, said 16 bodies and 26 wounded people were taken to the city’s Lady Reading Hospital.
Today’s bombing was the sixth in less than two weeks in and around Peshawar; the attacks have killed more than 80 people.
Police officers were searching a man at the gate of the city’s lower court when he detonated explosives on his body, government official Sahibzada Anees said.
Several damaged motorbikes were strewn about the site, and firefighters sprayed water on a charred, smoking white car.
The army launched its offensive against the Pakistani Taliban in South Waziristan in mid-October.
It has retaken many towns in the region, but the militants say they avoided fighting and will now begin a guerrilla campaign.
Since the beginning of October, more than 300 people have been killed in attacks on government, civilian and western targets in the country, most of them in the northwest.
The explosion occurred hours after missiles fired from a suspected US drone killed three suspected militants in Shana Khuwara village in North Waziristan, another region close to the Afghan border region where al Qaida and Taliban hold sway.
The missiles hit a house owned by a local tribesman just after midnight, said two intelligence officials.
Ahmed Noor Wazir, who witnessed the attack, said rescuers pulled three dead bodies and four badly wounded men from the rubble of the house, which was being used by Taliban militants.
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