Suicide attack kills 56 in Pakistan tribal belt

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HARTAL PANIC: Frightened passengers of a pickup screaming while pickets tried to vandalise the vehicle at Mohakhali in the city during the BNP-called dawn-to-dusk shutdown Sunday. — Banglanews24.com

YAKAGHUND, July 9 (AFP): A suicide attacker and suspected car bomb caused carnage in a busy Pakistani market outside a government office on Friday, killing 56 people and burying victims under pulverised shops.
The devastation struck Yakaghund town in the district of Mohmand, one of seven that make up Pakistan's northwest tribal belt which Washington has branded a global headquarters of Al-Qaeda and the most dangerous place on Earth.
It was the deadliest attack in nuclear-armed Pakistan since gunmen wearing suicide vests stormed prayer halls belonging to the minority Ahmadi community in the city of Lahore in May, killing at least 82 people.
A Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked bombing spree across Pakistan has killed around 3,500 people in three years since government troops besieged a radical mosque in the capital Islamabad in July 2007.
Witnesses said a huge explosion damaged an administration office, shops, a jail and other buildings in the small town not far from the border with Afghanistan, where 140,000 US-led foreign troops are fighting the Taliban.
Wounded Raj Wali, 23, a labourer who was working on a nearby road at the time of the blast, said he suddenly felt a massive blow to his back.
"I turned round and saw the area engulfed in smoke. People were crying. I also saw body parts scattered near the blast site," he said.
Bodies were laid out on rope-slung cots, covered in white sheets as relatives arrived to identify the dead. A mother, two sisters and son were seen crying wretchedly over the body of one man who was killed.
Rescue workers were sifting through the debris of partially collapsed buildings and officials feared the death toll could rise further.