Sunday, June 14, 2009

Nine killed in Dera Ismail Khan market blast



DERA ISMAIL KHAN:A bomb blast in a market killed nine people in Dera Ismail Khan on Sunday, the latest in a wave of attacks since the army launched an offensive against Taliban militants.

The militants have responded with a string of bombs in towns and cities.

Separately on Sunday, a suspected US drone aircraft fired a missile in the South Waziristan region, a stronghold of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, killing three militants travelling in a vehicle, a witness and officials said.

The bomb in a market in Dera Ismail Khan killed eight people and wounded 25, a government official said.

"The initial probe suggests that the device was planted in a push-cart parked in the middle of the market," Syed Mohsin Shah, the top government official in the city, told Reuters.

The drone strike on Sunday, the first since May 16, was in Laddah, in South Waziristan, about 60 km (40 miles) north of the region's main town of Wana.

"The missile destroyed the vehicle and I saw three bodies lying next to it," Pashtun tribal leader Habibullah Mehsud told Reuters by telephone from the region on the Afghan border.

A government official in the region confirmed the attack, saying drones had been flying over South Waziristan since early morning. The identity of the dead militants was not known.

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