Bomb kills child outside school in Pakistan

[April 20, 2010]  PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) -- A bomb exploded outside a school run by a police welfare foundation in the northwest Pakistani city of Peshawar on Monday, killing a young boy and wounding 10 other people, police said.

Taliban and al-Qaida militants currently fighting Pakistani security forces will be suspected in the attack because of the school's link to the police. The militants have appeared willing to inflict civilian casualties in their attacks on the state.

Insurgents based in the Afghan border region have carried hundreds of attacks over the last three years. Two blasts over the weekend in the nearby Kohat tribal region killed around 50 people, most of them refugees lining up to register for food and other aid.

The Police Public School was in session when the bomb went off, said police official Shafiullah Khan.

The school is run by a police welfare foundation, which raises money to help families of police officers.

The dead boy was aged between 5 and 7, Khan said. Ten other people were wounded, including five children.

Also Monday, suspected Taliban militants in the northwest detonated two bombs that destroyed a pair of oil tankers along a vital route used to supply NATO and U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

No one was wounded, but the fire also engulfed a flatbed truck and nearby shops in the Takhta Beg area of the Khyber tribal region, local official Iqbal Khan said.

Taliban militants and ordinary criminals frequently attack vehicles along the supply route that runs through the famed Khyber Pass into Afghanistan. The U.S. and NATO say their Afghan operations have felt limited impact, but they are establishing alternate routes.

[Associated Press; By RIAZ KHAN]

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