21 killed in suicide blast in Pakistan’s northwest

ISLAMABAD - At least 21 people, including a senior police officer, were killed Monday when a suicide bomber targeted police guarding a political rally in Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa region, officials said.

The attack occurred in the city’s Qissa Khawani bazaar, where a police contingent was deployed to protect a public meeting of Jamati Islami, a right-wing religious-political entity, to protest against recent power outages.

A senior police official, Liaquat Ali Khan, said the police appeared to be the target of the attack that “killed 21 people and injured 27″.

An eyewitness, Imran, said a single suicide bomber, around 14 years old, detonated the explosives when the rally had ended and the policemen were preparing to move away.

Shafqat Malik, an official with a bomb disposal squad, confirmed that a young boy in his mid-teens carried out the suicide attack. He also said nearly six kg of explosive were used.

The attack occurred hours after a bomb exploded near the entrance of a school for police officers’ children, killing a 7-year-old pupil and injuring seven others.

The Peshawar attacks came after two days of successive suicide strikes in neighbouring Kohat district, which killed at least 50 people and injured more than 100.

Insurgents have intensified their bombing campaign after Pakistan launched a series of military offensives against Islamist militants operating in the country - most recently, in the Orkzai tribal area near the Afghan border.