From correspondents in Peshawar | December 28, 2008
TWENTY-three people have been killed and 15 hurt in a suspected suicide car bomb blast in an area of north-west Pakistan rocked by a violent campaign to impose Islamic law, police said.
The bomb destroyed a school in the town of Buner on the edge of the restive Swat valley, where voters were casting ballots in a parliamentary by-election, and caused the collapse of a nearby market, police said.
"Apparently it was a suicide car bomb blast," said local police official Behramand Khan.
The car bomb went off today outside the school, but he said police were still unable to say whether the blast was definitely the work of a suicide attacker, as the area was littered with body parts and flesh.
Further investigation was needed to identify the remains, he said.
"The bomb was so powerful that it completely destroyed the school building and badly damaged nearby houses and other buildings,'' he said.
Some of those killed were in a nearby market when the roof collapsed.
Khan said he feared the toll would rise, as residents had told police that four people were still missing.
The mountainous Swat valley - once known as the "Switzerland of Pakistan'' - was until last year a popular destination for local and foreign tourists that boasted the country's only ski resort.
But the region has been turned into a battleground since radical cleric Maulana Fazlullah, who has links to Pakistan's Taliban movement, launched a violent campaign for the introduction of Islamic Sharia law in the valley.
Pakistani troops launched a major offensive in the area last year, but have since scaled back their operations.
TWENTY-three people have been killed and 15 hurt in a suspected suicide car bomb blast in an area of north-west Pakistan rocked by a violent campaign to impose Islamic law, police said.
The bomb destroyed a school in the town of Buner on the edge of the restive Swat valley, where voters were casting ballots in a parliamentary by-election, and caused the collapse of a nearby market, police said.
"Apparently it was a suicide car bomb blast," said local police official Behramand Khan.
The car bomb went off today outside the school, but he said police were still unable to say whether the blast was definitely the work of a suicide attacker, as the area was littered with body parts and flesh.
Further investigation was needed to identify the remains, he said.
"The bomb was so powerful that it completely destroyed the school building and badly damaged nearby houses and other buildings,'' he said.
Some of those killed were in a nearby market when the roof collapsed.
Khan said he feared the toll would rise, as residents had told police that four people were still missing.
The mountainous Swat valley - once known as the "Switzerland of Pakistan'' - was until last year a popular destination for local and foreign tourists that boasted the country's only ski resort.
But the region has been turned into a battleground since radical cleric Maulana Fazlullah, who has links to Pakistan's Taliban movement, launched a violent campaign for the introduction of Islamic Sharia law in the valley.
Pakistani troops launched a major offensive in the area last year, but have since scaled back their operations.
Source: The Australian from Agence France-Presse
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