Source: AFP

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) — A suicide car bomber smashed into a police checkpost in Pakistan’s restive northwestern Swat valley on Sunday, killing a policeman and five civilians, officials said.

The attack in Kabal district was in an area where the military has launched an operation against militants loyal to pro-Taliban cleric Maulana Fazlullah.

“It was a suicide attack. The bomber hit the checkpost barricades with the car and then blew himself up,” provincial government spokesman Amjad Iqbal told AFP.

“A policeman and five civilians including two children were killed and two other policemen were also injured,” Iqbal said.

He did not immediately have details of those injured in the blast.

On Saturday, officials claimed they had almost cleared the Swat valley of rebels, killing 290 and arresting another 143 in recent weeks.

Separately, suspected militants fired rockets at an air force base in the northwest city of Peshawar early Sunday and bombed a girls’ school, but there were no casualties, police said.

Two rockets landed in a field at the base while a third exploded on a road near the area after midnight, senior police official Mohammad Tahir Khan told AFP.

Part of the base is used for domestic and international passenger flights, with Peshawar the provincial capital of North West Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan.

Suspected militants also hit a girls’ high school in Peshawar, causing some structural damage, another police official said.

Peshawar is located close to Pakistan’s semi-autonomous tribal zones where government forces are battling pro-Taliban and Al-Qaeda linked militants.

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Tags: peshawr, sucide bomber, swat