Several dead in Pakistan bombing

[frigidmagi]

BBC

A bomb blast has killed at least seven people at a market in the north-western Pakistani town of Dera Ismail Khan.

Many more people were wounded in the blast, reports said.

"It seems the bomb was planted. At the moment, we have at least seven dead and 50 wounded," government official Syed Mohsin Shah told Reuters news agency.

In February, 25 people were killed in a bomb attack on a funeral procession in the town, near Pakistan's restive tribal belt.

Stronghold

The market attack comes amid a government offensive against Taliban militants in Pakistan's north-western provinces in which three people are believed to have been killed.

Another bomb attack in January killed five people in the town.

Dera Ismail Khan has also been the scene of a number of deadly attacks targeted at the local Shia population since 2007.

In a separate development, Pakistani authorities are investigating reports of a suspected US military drone attack in south Waziristan near the border with Afghanistan.

The area is known as a main stronghold of the Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, whose movement has acknowledged responsibility for a number of the recent suicide bombings in Pakistan, the BBC's Mike Woolridge, in Islamabad, said.