PESHAWAR, Pakistan, May 1, (AFP) -A bomb exploded at the entrance to a busy market in the main town of Pakistan's northwestern district Swat on Saturday, wounding up to five people, police said.
“Several people were wounded in this bomb blast. It's not clear whether it's a suicide blast or a planted bomb. We have started the rescue activity,”Ghulam Farooq, Mingora city police chief, told AFP by telephone.
Qazi Jamil, the police chief in the wider Malakand region to which Swat belongs, confirmed that a bomb had exploded. “Five people are wounded,” he told AFP by telephone.
For two years the Taliban paralysed much of the Swat valley by promoting a repressive brand of Islamic law, opposing secular girls' education and beheading opponents until the government ordered in thousands of troops.
Following a major military offensive launched a year ago, Pakistan declared that the mountain region was back under army control, although skirmishes, threats and tensions have remained.
Saturday's bomb was the first in Mingora since a suicide attacker killed nine people in the city on February 22. |
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