Three bombings kill 36 in Pakistan (Third Lead)

ISLAMABAD - Three bombings killed at least 36 people, including a former member of the national parliament, Monday in Pakistan’s tribal region and adjoining north-western frontier province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, officials said.

In the first attack, a suicide bomber detonated his explosives at the main gate of a mosque in Wana, the main town of the South Waziristan district, when former lawmaker and pro-government religious scholar Maulana Noor Mohammad was leaving.

An official from the office of district’s political agent - a term used to refer the civil administrator - said that 26 people were killed and 40 injured in the blast.

The official who asked not to be named said that the death toll could be higher that reported so far.

His boss, Shahab Ali Shah, the political agent, confirmed the death of Mohammad, who had stayed neutral when thousands of troops launched an operation against the Taliban and their leader Hakimullah Mehsud in South Waziristan in October.

Mohammad was in favour of an Islamic jihad, or holy war, against international forces in Afghanistan, but he opposed the Taliban’s attacks on civilians and officials inside Pakistan.

In the past, Mohammad had negotiated peace deals between the Taliban and the government.

In a separate incident in the tribal region, a bombing at a meeting of elders Monday killed at least seven people and injured several more.

Naeemullah Jan, an official in Kurram district where the incident took place, said that the elders from two tribes were holding a meeting about the ownership of a school in Khumcha village when the bomb exploded.

“It’s a remote area and the information is coming very slow. We don’t know yet the nature of the blast,” Jan said.

In Pakistan’s tribal region school buildings are constructed with government funding but are owned by individuals, under special laws that date from the British imperial era.

Kurram Agency is believed to be a safe haven of Al Qaeda and Taliban militants. Pakistani troops have launched an operation to clear the area of militants.

In the third incident, a roadside bomb destroyed the vehicle carrying the leader of an anti-Taliban militia leader in Mutani, a suburb of Peshawar, the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

Mumtaz Khan, a local police official said that, Israrullah Khan, the head of the tribal militia (Lashkar) and his two aides died in the blast.