Bomb kills nine-year-old Pakistan child

A bomb killed a nine-year-old Pakistani child yesterday and wounded a teenager outside the house of an anti-Taliban elder in a restive northwestern area, police said.

The bomb exploded in Shahukhel village in Hangu district, which borders the lawless Orakzai tribal district, a known Taliban hideout, district police chief Abdul Rashid told AFP. He said the device was planted outside the house of a tribal elder who organised a village force against the Taliban.

“The bomb hit two passer-by children. One of them died,” Rashid said, adding that the blast seemed to be the work of Taliban militants. The child who died was nine years old and the one wounded was 13, he added. No one has so far claimed responsibility for the attack.

More than 4,200 people have been killed across Pakistan in attacks blamed on Taliban and other Islamist extremist networks based in the tribal belt since government troops stormed a radical mosque in Islamabad in 2007.