YAKAGHUND, Pakistan, July 10, (AFP) - At least 102 people have died in a suicide bombing and a car bomb blast that targeted a Pakistani tribal town in one of the country's deadliest attacks, officials said Saturday.
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| Pakistani paramilitary soldiers search for victims following a suicide bomb attack in the district of Mohmand on July 9. AFP |
The blasts devastated Yakaghund town in Pakistan's northwest tribal belt on Friday, destroying government buildings, shops and burying victims under the rubble.
Local administration chief Rasool Khan said the death toll had jumped to 102, after he and other officials had earlier put the number of dead at 65.
“Some bodies were recovered from the spot and some died in hospitals overnight,” he told AFP.
Another local official, Mairaj Mohammad, confirmed the higher toll and said there were 98 people receiving treatment in different hospitals. “Some of them are in critical condition,” he said.
It was the deadliest attack since a massive car bomb that destroyed a market crowded with women and children in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing at least 125 people in October 2009.
Khan said the toll may rise further as rescue work was underway to recover victims who are feared trapped under pulverised buildings.
Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for Friday's blasts, saying the target was a gathering of pro-government tribal elders.
Qari Ikramullah, a spokesman for Taliban militants in the region, said in a telephone call to AFP that they were meeting in an administrator's office and planning to raise a lashkar, or tribal force, to fight the Taliban.
“We will attack such gatherings in future also,” he said.
A Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked bombing spree across Pakistan has killed more than 3,500 people in three years since government troops besieged the radical Red Mosque in the capital Islamabad in July 2007. |
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