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Scores Dead in Pak, Afghan Suicide Bombings

Scores Dead in Pak, Afghan Suicide Bombings
Scores Dead in Pak, Afghan Suicide Bombings

A Taliban suicide bomber on Tuesday killed at least seven people and himself in a brazen attack on police headquarters in Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore, in what militants called a revenge bid for the recent hangings of colleagues.

It was the third in a series of high-profile attacks in the last month triggered by a government decision in December to begin hanging those convicted of terror attacks, Reuters reported.

“We claim the attack in Lahore because the government is killing our men in prison,” said Ehsanullah Ehsan, a spokesman for the Taliban splinter group Jamaat-ul-Ahrar.

In neighboring Afghanistan, four Taliban suicide attackers stormed a police headquarters in an eastern province, killing at least 22 policemen, officials said.

Din Mohammad Darwesh, a spokesperson for the governor of Afghanistan’s eastern Logar province said on Tuesday that the officers were killed when four suicide attackers stormed a police headquarters in the provincial capital, Pul-i-Alam, around 80 kilometers east of Kabul.

“Four suicide bombers attacked the police headquarters. One detonated himself at the gate, two others were killed in a firefight with police, but one managed to get into and detonate himself at the dining place of police forces,” Darweish said, adding that “10 police were dead and eight injured” in the attack.

Casualties would have been much greater if the police had not been alert and kept out the bomber, Lahore police chief Amin Wains told reporters at the attack site.

“It was a suicide blast, the bomber blew up prematurely outside the police offices,” he added. “That he could not enter the offices shows our security was successful.”

No organization immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. However, officials blamed the Taliban for the suicide bombing at the police headquarter in Pul-i-Alam.

Earlier on Tuesday, a bomb attached to a vehicle wounded one person in Kabul, police said, breaking a recent lull in attacks in the Afghan capital.

 

Financialtribune.com