Seven killed as series of blasts rock Peshawar

Four police officials and a boy were martyred in the remote-controlled bomb attack on a police mobile in Lahori Gate area early in the morning while two alleged suicide bomber were killed in the other attacks which were carried out just two hours later.At least two persons were killed and 11 others including two policemen were injured Thursday morning in suicide blasts in Lahori Gate area of Peshawar.According to the initial reports, two female suicide bombers attacked a checkpost near the blast site where a police van was hit earlier Thursday.Both the female suicide bombers were killed in the attack. The injured were shifted to Lady Reading Hospital.Eyewitnesses said that the two female suicide bombers first threw a hand grenade on the site before they committed suicide attack, causing a stampede in the area as a lot of people were gathering there.The female suicide bomber who first blew herself up was aged between 16 to 17 years old and the second one is aged at 45, said police sources.Police and rescue teams reached the site and shifted the injured to Lady Reading Hospital. Earlier, a remote-controlled bomb exploded near a police vehicle in Peshawar’s Lahori gate area on Thursday, killing 5 people, including four police officials, and wounding dozens. Four police officers were among the dead.Senior police official Imtiaz Khan said the truck that was hit was carrying police constables heading to start their shift for the day. He said four police officers and a passer-by were killed in the blast, while some of the wounded were listed in a critical condition.No group claimed responsibility, but authorities have blamed the Pakistani Taliban for previous such attacks.The city has endured numerous bombings in recent years, many of them aimed at security forces and government officials.The latest attack came a day after Pakistan extradited a key suspect in the 2002 Bali bombings, Umar Patek, to Indonesia more than six months after he was captured in the country s northwest.Patek allegedly built the bombs used in the suicide attacks on Bali nightclubs that killed 202 people, many of them Australian tourists.Patek had a $1 million bounty on his head when he was captured in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad on Jan. 25, four months before Osama bin Laden was killed there in a U.S. commando attack.