Suicide attack on Pak police station kills 4

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MINGORA, (Pakistan), Oct 16 (AFP): A suicide bomber rammed a vehicle packed with explosives into a police station in Pakistan's restive Swat valley Thursday, killing four people and destroying the building, police said.
The attack was the latest in a string of bombings on security forces in troubled northwestern Pakistan, where the government is waging a military campaign against militants with links to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
"It was a huge blast. Three security force personnel and one policeman were killed. The police station was destroyed," Mingora city police chief Dilawar Khan Bangash told AFP.
He said the coordinated attack had begun soon after midnight, with militants and security forces trading fierce gunfire before the suicide bomber drove a 14-seat bus into the back of the police station's grounds.
The vehicle exploded as it came under fire, damaging scores of shops, a hotel, a school and many houses in Mingora, the main town in the Swat valley.
Most of the 30 people injured were security forces and police, though two civilian bystanders were also hurt, he said.
The Mingora police station was also targeted by militants in July, when two members of the security forces were injured.
The building was wrecked by Thursday's attack, with its heavy concrete floors blown apart and its walls reduced to rumble.
Security forces in mountainous Swat, a former tourist region dubbed the "Switzerland of Pakistan", have been battling pro-Taliban militants who tried to enforce harsh Islamic Sharia law a year ago.
Fighter jets and helicopter gunships last week destroyed Taliban strongholds in the valley, killing 20, officials said.
The government has tried to enlist fiercely independent ethnic Pashtun tribesmen in the northwest to back its military operations against Al-Qaeda and Taliban extremists.
But the Islamic militants have fought back, killing dozens of security forces and also many tribal elders they accuse of siding with the government.
At least 60 people were killed in the suicide bombing of the luxury Marriott hotel in the capital Islamabad on September 20. Officials suspect that attack was carried out by Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network.
The United States has become increasingly concerned at Pakistan's failure to tackle Taliban militants based in the lawless tribal belt and in the adjoining North West Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan.
The latest suicide attack comes amid a string of US missile strikes into Pakistan and one ground incursion by US troops deployed in Afghanistan, which have raised tensions between Islamabad and Washington.