Pakistan bomb victims mourned

Pakistan bomb victims mourned

Mourners in northwest Pakistan have buried scores of their relatives and friends killed in a suicide bomb attack.

Grief-stricken relatives wept on Saturday as they lifted coffins and said funeral prayers for at least 40 people who were killed when a suicide bomber attacked a funeral in the Swat valley region the day before.

Sixty people were also injured when the bomber blew himself up among at the funeral on Friday for one of three police officers killed earlier when their van struck a roadside bomb in the northwestern town of Lakki Marwat, police said.

An estimated 800 people were attending the funeral of Javed Iqbal in the town of Mingora in the Swat valley, when the bomb went off, security officials said.

Ghazan, Iqbal's 16-year-old son, was among the dead after the funeral bombing.

Police began searching for clues on Saturday.

Death toll rising

Arshad Majid, the district police chief, said 40 bodies were accounted for, but the toll was expected to rise after forensic officials reconstruct body parts.

Another suicide bombing on Saturday killed one person and wounded 19 people, mostly security personnel, in the region, officials said.

The bomber struck a vehicle carrying security forces in the northwestern tribal region of Bajur, according to Iqbal Khatak, a government official.

He said the severed head of the attacker, who was on foot, was found at the scene.

All the victims were taken to a hospital where three of them were in critical condition, he said.

Immediately after Friday's suicide bombing in Mingora, authorities made an emergency appeal for blood donations.

Syed Kamal Shah, health minister of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), told the AFP news agency: "We are facing difficulty in the relief operation because the blast also damaged an electricity transformer in the area."

He said the hospital facilities could not cope and there were not enough emergency supplies due to the ongoing military operation against armed groups in the area.

Battle ground

Pakistani troops have been battling fighters in the Swat valley, a once popular tourist site.

Major-General Nasser Janjua, a regional commanding officer, said earlier in the week that 400 fighters were hiding in the valley.

"Nobody has claimed the responsibility for the attack, but we suspect the involvement of miscreants (militants) against whom the military operation was being carried out," another senior security official said.

PHOTO CAPTION 

Victims of the attack lay on a hospital floor in the town of Mingora in the Swat valley [AFP]

Al-Jazeera

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