Nine killed in Pakistan suicide attack: official

At least nine people were killed and 16 others wounded when a suicide bomber blew up his explosive-laden car in northwest Pakistan's Kurram tribal district Saturday, officials said. The bomber detonated the vehicle just outside the compound of anti-Taliban militant commander Maulana Nabi, in the town of Spin Tal near the Afghan border, senior administration official Zakir Hussain said. "It was a suicide attack, the target was militant commander Nabi's centre," Hussain told AFP. Nabi's guards stopped the vehicle and the attacker blew his car up after he failed to enter the compound, he said. Residents said he survived the attack. An intelligence official placed the death toll at 10. They included a guard and four children who had been playing near the compound. Officials said Nabi had developed differences with the leadership of the Pakistani Taliban. Kurram is one of seven districts in Pakistan's tribal belt on the Afghan border that is home to Taliban and Al-Qaeda strongholds. Washington has dubbed the area the most dangerous region on Earth. Earlier in the day an improvised explosive device ripped through a pick-up truck in another northwestern Pakistani town, killing three people inside the vehicle, officials said. The bomb "was detonated using a remote controlled device" near the town of Dhog Darra in Upper Dir district, regional police chief Ehsanullah Khan said. Khan added eight were wounded in the attack, two of whom were in critical condition. The dead included the driver of the vehicle and two young men. "It was a militant act aimed at creating fear among the people in the area," Khan said. Dhog Darra is considered the stronghold of an anti-Taliban militia set up by local people in Upper Dir district. The district lies close to the tribal belt and eastern Afghanistan's troubled provinces of Kunar and Nuristan. There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the attack, but an intelligence official in Upper Dir told AFP the attackers were followers of Maulana Fazlullah, a radical cleric from the Swat valley, who fled into Afghanistan following a military offensive. In April 2009, the Pakistan army sent 30,000 troops into battle against Taliban fighters led by Fazlullah, who had terrorised local residents with a campaign of beheadings, violence and attacks on girls' schools since 2007. The Pakistan army declared the picturesque Swat region back under control in July 2009 and said the rebels had all been killed, captured or had fled. Pakistani officials said the rebels had regrouped in Kunar and Nuristan. According to an AFP tally, attacks blamed on Islamists have killed more than 5,100 people in Pakistan since government troops raided an extremist mosque in the capital Islamabad five years ago.