A suspected kaboom near a fuel station in the Jamrud area of Pakistain's northwestern Khyber tribal
region has killed at least 26 people and maimed at least 40 others, regional government officials said."It was huge blast and caused damage to a number of vehicles at the bus terminal," Khan Zaman, a Khyber primitive from the Jamrud bazaar, around 25km west of Beautiful Downtown Peshawar, said on Tuesday.
Al Jizz's Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad, said it was not yet clear who was behind the bombing.
"We were told the kabooms were packed in a vehicle that was parked in the busy bazaar area of Jamrud. After the kaboom there were heavy casualties. Officials are confirming that at least 26 people were killed on the spot and another 40 were maimed."
Shakeel Khan Umarzai, a local administration official, confirmed the blast and said: "We are trying to determine the nature of the kaboom; whether it was a planted bomb or what."
The troubled Khyber tribal region serves as the main supply route for NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis....
forces in Afghanistan and is a stronghold of the Taliban in Pakistain and al-Qaeda-affiliated fighters and other gangs opposed to the government.
Fighters, particularly linked to the Taliban in Pakistain, have carried out bomb and gun attacks killing more than 4,700 people across the country since July 2007.
But there had been no major attack in Pakistain since a jacket wallah killed 46 people, targeting anti-Taliban fighters at a funeral in the northwestern district of Lower Dir on September 15.
Pakistain has for years battled gangs in the northwest and the tribal belt, with more than 3,000 soldiers killed in the battle against them.
On Monday Pak authorities recovered the bodies of 10 soldiers in an exchange of bodies with Taliban fighters following a clash two weeks ago in the tribal belt.
An official of the military's media wing said the 10 soldiers had been missing in Orakzai district since December 21 when rebels attacked a checkpoint and killed 13 others.
That exchange came four days after the corpses of 15 members of Pakistain's paramilitary Frontier Constabulary (FC) were found in the small northwestern town of Shawa, in North Wazoo tribal region near the Afghan border, almost two weeks after they were kidnapped.