A bomb attack in northwest Pakistan killed a former minister on Sunday, officials said, keeping up pressure on a government struggling to contain a raging Taliban insurgency and stabilize the country.
A roadside bomb hit the car in which former provincial minister Ghani-ur-Rehman was travelling.
"The minister, his bodyguard and driver were killed," said Fazal Naeem, a police official in the town of Hangu, where the attack took place. A second bodyguard was also killed.
Rehman, a controversial former northwestern cabinet minister, and three other people were killed in the restive district of Hangu in an area with a history of Sunni and Shiite Muslim sectarian clashes.
The blast comes in an especially bloody week, including the suicide bombing of a volleyball game in a northwestern village where anti-Taliban militias were being formed. At least 98 people were killed.
In another attack, claimed by the Taliban, a suicide bomber blew himself up at a religious procession of thousands of Shiite Muslims in Karachi, Pakistan’s biggest city.
The blast killed 43 people, triggering riots that destroyed hundreds of buildings in the commercial capital, an image that could discourage badly needed investment in infrastructure.
New militant tactics
Such large-scale operations suggest Pakistani Taliban fighters are now focusing on bombing large crowds of civilians to inflict maximum casualties and spread terror in a bid topple the pro-American government of President Asif Ali Zardari.
Bloodshed has intensified since July 2007 when the army cleared militants from a radical mosque in Islamabad.
The violence has also included attacks on government officials and anti-Taliban clerics. In one of the boldest operations, suicide bombers and gunmen attacked a mosque near the headquarters of Pakistan’s all-powerful military.
Meanwhile, A U.S. drone fired two missiles into a house used by militants in Pakistan’s tribal belt Sunday, killing two suspected fighters, Pakistani security officials said.
The attack took place in Mosakki village in North Waziristan, a stronghold of Taliban and al-Qaeda-linked militants, and was the third suspected U.S. missile attack in the tribal district in less than a week.
"One U.S. drone fired two missiles on a house…. The target was this house and a car parked outside was also destroyed," a senior security official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
"Two militants were killed in the attack and we have reports that more militants were hiding there, so the death toll could rise," he added.
The United States wants Islamabad to both defeat homegrown Pakistani Taliban and wipe out militants along the border who cross over into Afghanistan to attack Western forces.
But Pakistan has little incentive to root out militants focused on defeating what they call "occupation troops" in Afghanistan.