Six civilians killed in Pakistan blast

PESHAWAR: A bomb blast claimed by Taliban extremists killed six people including children in northwest Pakistan today, police said.

Three young boys, two women

and a driver were killed when the car

they were sitting in blew up in Charsadda district, about 30 km northeast of Peshawar, the capital of the North

West Frontier Province.

Safwat Ghyur, a Peshawar police official, said the vehicle had pulled up at a petrol station on its way to neighbouring Mohmand tribal district, where the government has tenuous control and Taliban militants are active.

“It was a timed device. Somebody gave baggage to a passenger and the

device was hidden in that baggage,” Ghyur said in remarks broadcast on local television, adding that at least eight people were also injured.

Surviving passengers told AFP they were from Mohmand’s Ambar village, where local tribesmen had raised a militia to fight against Islamist extremists.