Car bombing kills four policemen in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD - A suicide car bombing Wednesday at a police checkpoint killed four officers in Pakistan’s north-western city of Peshawar, security and health officials said.

Separately, at least two soldiers and seven militants died in clashes in the adjoining tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

Peshawar city police chief Liaquat Ali Khan said the bomber targeted in early hours of the day a checkpoint on the outskirts of Peshawar, the capital of the militancy-plagued Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province.

“They wanted to enter the city, but when the police stopped them for a search, they realized that they could not go any further and blew up the car there,” Khan said.

“All four policemen who stopped the car died at the scene while six more security personnel are wounded,” he added.

A health official at Peshawar’s state-run Lady Reading Hospital said the bodies of four policemen and 13 injured people had been moved there.

“Among the injured are three civilians, including a woman, and 10 policemen,” the official said.

The blast flattened the checkpoint building and damaged several nearby houses.