Source:AFP

PESHAWAR - A roadside bomb blast ripped through an election candidate’s car in northwestern Pakistan on Wednesday, killing two people and wounding two others, police said.

The candidate from a pro-Taliban Islamic party was among those wounded in the blast, which happened as the car left an election rally in the restive Swat Valley near the Afghan border, they said.

The attack was the fourth in the past week targeting election candidates or rallies, and came amid a wave of violence since the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto at a political meeting in December.

“Election candidate Mufti Hussain Ahmed was returning from an election rally when his vehicle was targeted by a remote control roadside bomb,” local police officer Wasiat Khan told AFP by telephone from the scene.

He said one person was killed instantly and another died in hospital. The candidate, who is standing for both the national and provincial assemblies, was wounded but out of danger, he added.

Officials said Ahmed was from a dissident faction of the radical Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party, a radical group which backed Afghanistan’s hardline Taliban militia during its 1996-2001 regime.

In recent violence, a suicide bomber killed 25 people at a rally of an opposition ethnic Pashtun party in northwestern Pakistan on Saturday.

Nine others died in another suicide attack in a tribal area on Monday that targeted the convoy of a political candidate.

Nine people were wounded on Tuesday when a bomb fixed to a bicycle exploded outside a candidate’s office in southwestern Pakistan.

The Swat Valley was a famed tourist spot until the middle of last year when it became a flashpoint for violence between the military and followers of a hardline pro-Taliban cleric who tried to establish Islamic sharia law.

The military launched an offensive in the Swat valley in November against the cleric, Maulana Fazlullah, killing and arresting hundreds of militants but failing to capture Fazlullah.

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Tags: election candidate's car, pro-Taliban Islamic party, roadside bomb blast