A suicide bomber killed an Islamist militant commander in northwest
Pakistan who had escaped two previous assassination attempts, and three
other people on Monday, police said.
The attack damaged a house
that commander Haji Akhunzada was building in Pakha Ghulam on the
outskirts of Peshawar, Pakistan's main northwestern city that borders
Taliban and Al-Qaeda strongholds near the Afghan border.
He was
considered a significant force within Ansar ul-Islam, a homegrown group
based in the lawless tribal district of Khyber, and had moved to
Peshawar after escaping two other failed attacks in the past.
"It
was a suicide attack, four people have been killed. Haji Akhunzada is
among the dead," Imtiaz Shah, a senior police officer, told AFP.
A bomb disposal official said it was a suicide attack.
"Evidence collected from site shows that a suicide bomber was involved," Hukam Khan told AFP.
Pakistani
officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, blamed rival militant
group, Lashkar-e-Islam for Monday's killings. Lashkar-e-Islam is another
homegrown militant group in Khyber led by warlord Mangal Bagh.
Khyber
is part of Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal belt that is a hub for
rival Islamist militant groups including the Taliban and Al-Qaeda
affiliates.
Siraj Ahmad, the top government official in Peshawar, told AFP that Akhunzada and his son-in-law were among the dead.
The bomber was dropped off by a motorcyclist, then walked to the house under construction and detonated his vest, Ahmad added.
Ansar ul-Islam and Lashkar-e-Islam have a history of killing each other's fighters, police said.
Despite
a relative lull in recent months, Islamist bombers and gunmen have
killed more than 4,800 across Pakistan since government troops raided an
extremist mosque in Islamabad in July 2007.
According to an AFP
tally, bomb attacks killed 1,118 people in 2010 and 818 in 2011. So far
in 2012, 68 people have died in such violence.
It was the first
bombing in Pakistan since 16 Shiite Muslim worshippers were killed in
the central district of Rahim Yar Khan on January 15, coming three weeks
after 35 people were killed in the Jamrud town of Khyber on January 10. AFP
