At least 30 people were killed in a suicide car bomb blast at a polling station in northwestern Pakistan yesterday, during a by-election for a provincial assembly seat, police said.
“The death toll has reached to 30. It could rise further,” Behraman Khan, head of the police station near the Buner town, where the blast took place, said by telephone. “It was a suicide attack.”
Khan said the attacker, who was apparently alone, is believed to have driven the car, parked it in front of the school where the polling station was set up and detonated the explosives while polling was underway.
The suicide bomber pretended to need help with his car before detonating the powerful explosion that destroyed the school where the polling station was located.
“The suicide attacker pulled his car outside the polling station, and asked people to push the vehicle, saying that it had broken down. His purpose was to gather the maximum people around the car. The moment people started pushing the car, he blew it up,” said Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the information minister of the North West Frontier Province.
He said the attack was a message to the world that: “It is not possible to hold a peaceful election in this country.”
It is the latest in a string of blasts in a region where security forces are battling al-Qaeda and Taliban-linked militants who have unleashed a wave of suicide bomb attacks and target killings in response to operations against them.
Another police official said four children were among the dead and their bodies were mutilated beyond recognition. Khan said around a dozen people were wounded.
The school building where the polling station was set up collapsed after the blast.
The incident took place near Buner, a remote town in North West Frontier Province near the Swat Valley where security forces have been fighting militants since last year.
In Swat, about 34 militants and two soldiers were killed in clashes on Saturday, military officials said. There was no independent verification of the casualty estimate.
The attack underscored concerns that militant violence near the Afghan border could escalate now that Pakistan is shifting troops away from the region toward India.
Also See: Pakistan, India can’t afford war
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat