KHAR: A powerful roadside bomb targeting an anti-Taliban militia ripped through a pick-up vehicle in Bajaur on Thursday killing at least five people, government officials said.
The blast badly damaged the pick-up in a remote village close to the Afghan border, in the northwestern district of Bajaur.
"It was a planted IED (improvised-explosive device) which exploded when the vehicle passed. Five people have been killed and eight others were wounded," Adalat Khan, a government official in Chamarkand village, told AFP by phone.
"Three of those who died are members of an anti-Taliban militia and one is a 10-year-old boy. The fifth one is the driver."
Irshad Shah, another government official, confirmed the casualties although there were fears that the death toll could rise.
Local tribesmen have set up anti-Taliban militias, sponsored by the government, in many parts of northwest Pakistan.
Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011
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