3 soldiers, children killed in suicide attack in Pak

AT least six people were killed in a suicide attack in Pakistan’s north-western tribal region where there has been an increase in attacks by militants targeting security forces.

“Three soldiers and three children were killed in a suicide attack,” the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the military’s media wing, said in a statement on Sunday.

The suicide bomber blew himself up near a military vehicle as soldiers patrolled the area late on Saturday, local media reported.

The attack took place in the orth Waziristan district near the Afghan border, an area that once was a stronghold of alQaeda and the Taliban.

o group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.

The Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), have stepped up their violent campaign in recent months.

The TTP are based along the Afghan-Pakistani border and follow the same hardline interpretation of Sunni Islam as their Afghan counterparts that swept to power last year, but they have a different organizational setup. They are waging an insurgency to implement Sharia rule in Pakistan.

Around 80,000 Pakistani civilians and security forces have been killed in suicide bombings and other Taliban attacks in almost two decades of violence. The latest attack comes days after one person was killed and more than a dozen were injured in a blast at a market in the port city of Karachi on Thursday.

Separately, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the suicide attack and expressed grief over the lives lost. In a statement, PM Shehbaz also paid special tribute to the martyred soldiers, and offered his condolences to the families of the children.

“The killers of innocent children are the enemies of both Islam and humanity. We will not sit idle until this brutality is eradicated,” he said, vowing to punish the facilitators of the attacker.

He went on to say that the sacrifices rendered by the armed forces was a golden chapter in the country’s history, adding that Pakistan was proud of its martyrs.