At least four people,including a local mayor,were killed and 26 others injured when a suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden truck into a police station in northwest Pakistan today,the latest in a series of terror attacks across the country. Witnesses said three men drove up to the police station in Karak area near here in a pick-up truck. After two of them got out of the vehicle,the driver rammed the explosives-packed truck into the police station. Two constables,a driver and the 'nazim' or mayor of a local union council were killed in the blast,which occurred at the main gate of the police station and also damaged a nearby mosque and destroyed seven vehicles. District police chief Sajid Mohmand said 14 policemen were among 26 people injured in the attack. The injured were taken to a nearby hospital and officials described the condition of some of them as critical. They said the number of the dead could rise. Security personnel cordoned off the area after the blast and launched a search for the suicide bomber's two accomplices. Authorities also imposed curfew in Karak. No group claimed responsibility for the attack but Taliban militants have targeted police,security forces and government offices in northwest Pakistan over the past three years. Though Karak district lies between the militancy-affected areas of Lakki Marwat,Bannu and Kohat,this is the first time a suicide attack was carried out in the area. Police officials said they had prevented another suicide attack on a police station at Mattani,a suburb of Peshawar,by intercepting the bomber as he tried to enter the building. There were also reports that four suicide attackers had entered Mingora,the main city in the restive Swat district of North West Frontier Province. Earlier,a police officer was killed and several others were injured when militants carried out near-simultaneous suicide attacks on two police stations in NWFP last Saturday. Pakistan has witnessed a string of suicide attacks and bombings since the military launched a massive operation against the Taliban in the restive South Waziristan tribal belt in October last year. Hundreds of people have died in these attacks.
