Agencies

Islamabad, September 18

At least 33 people have been killed and many injured in a suicide car bomb attack at a village market in north-west Pakistan, police say.

The explosion is said to have taken place at a busy intersection close to the garrison town of Kohat. Most of the dead are said to be members of the Shia Muslim minority. The area has a history of sectarian tension. A little-known militant group calling itself Lahskar-e-Jhangvi al-Almi says it carried out the attack.

It says the attack was in revenge for the death of a prominent religious leader, Maulana M Amin, who was killed in Hangu in June.

The group is likely to be linked to Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a Sunni extremist group which has links to the Taliban.

Astarzai village, where the blast took place, has a substantial Shia population and is close to the Orakzai tribal region, a stronghold of the Taliban’s present chief.

Hakimullah Mehsud took over as the leader of the Pakistani Taliban — a Sunni group — after his predecessor, Baitullah Mehsud, was killed by a US missile strike.

The head of Astarzai’s village council said that it was still waiting for machinery to help lift the debris and pull out bodies.

The blast took place

at 11am.

Violence-hit North-West

• 18 September: At least 25 people killed in a suicide bombing at a market in the north-west

• 30 August: Suicide bomber kills 14 police recruits in Swat valley

• 27 August: 22 police guards killed at checkpoint on border with Afghanistan

• 14 August: Seven killed in market blast in Dera Ismail Khan

• 5 June: Mosque blast kills at least 38 in Upper Dir district

• 20 February: Dozens of Shias killed in market bombing in the north-west