A soldier and a policeman were killed and three soldiers were injured on Sunday when a car exploded at a checkpoint in PakistanÂ’s restive tribal region bordering Afghanistan, officials said. The lone occupant of the vehicle also died in the blast, a security official said, adding that officials were investigating if it was a suicide attack or whether some explosive material in the car went off accidentally. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said police and paramilitary soldiers manning a checkpoint in Datta Khel stopped a car and asked its driver to get out. The vehicle exploded before the troops could search it and the man inside was blown to pieces, the official said.
A paramilitary soldier and a tribal policeman also died in the blast and three paramilitary soldiers were wounded, he said. Datta Khel is 24 kilometers (15 miles) west of Miranshah, the main town in the tribal region of North Waziristan.
The incident came hours after masked pro-Taliban militants gunned down a pro-government tribal elder in the region. Gunmen sprayed bullets at Malik Takhti Khan, leader of the influential Jani Khel clan, when he visited the bazaar in the town of Mir Ali in North Waziristan, a local official said. Witnesses said the masked attackers fled in a waiting car. Khan, 55, had been supporting the governmentÂ’s drive against militants in the region, residents said.