PESHAWAR: At least nine people, including two bomb disposal officers, were killed Monday in two separate explosions in restive northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Station House Officer (SHO) Doaba police station Rahim Khan said a suicide bomber rammed his motorcycle into the vehicle of a tribal elder in KP’s Hangu district, killing seven people.
Ten other people were also wounded in the blast near a bus stand in Hangu's Doaba tehsil.
The explosion also destroyed seven other vehicles.
The injured and the dead were shifted to a local hospital as law enforcement agencies cordoned off the area and launched their investigation.
Sources said local tribal elder Malik Habibullah Khan was the intended target of the blast.
News agency AFP quoted local police chief Sajjad Khan as saying that Malik Habibullah was not in the car when the bomb exploded.
No militant group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.
Meanwhile, at least two bomb disposal officers were killed while attempting to defuse a bomb in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Swabi district.
District Police Officer Dr Mian Muhammad Saeed said that six bombs were planted to target a government school in Jamalabad area of Swabi.
The bomb disposal unit officials were defusing the road-side bombs when one of the devices exploded, killing both officers on the spot.