27 die as `schoolboy’ bomber targets Pakistan Army centre (Second Lead)
By IANSThursday, February 10, 2011
PESHAWAR - Twenty-seven soldiers were killed and 40 injured Thursday when a teenaged suicide bomber, disguised as a schoolboy, blew himself up at a Pakistan Army training centre in northwest Pakistan, authorities said.
The suicide attack targeted a military parade at Punjab regiment centre in Mardan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, said police official Zeeshan Haider.
Mardan is about 50 km northeast of Peshawar.
Express Tribune reported the suicide bomber is believed to be a 14-year-old boy who was wearing a school uniform.
Two military officials in Peshawar said that the blast took place at a military parade.
All those killed and injured were army men, DPA quoted Muhammad Adil, the top civilian administrator in Mardan, as saying.
Abdul Samad Khan, a senior police official, said the bomber managed to sneak into the otherwise heavily guarded training centre wearing a school uniform as a disguise.
The Taliban have targeted Pakistani soldiers in the past in retaliation for security actions against their bases in the tribal region along the Afghan border.
A Pakistani military spokesman, Major General Athar Abbas, said this week that 2,700 troops and 300 intelligence agents have been killed in such attacks since 2003.
