Islamabad, June 5
In raging violence in Pakistan's restive North West, a suicide bomber blew himself up in a mosque packed with worshippers killing 40 persons and wounding 50 others, while a roadside bomb hit an army convoy killing seven security personnel." At least 40 persons were killed and 50 injured in the blast", local officials told reporters.

The blast occurred as over 200 persons had gathered for Friday prayers in the mosque at Hayagai Sherqi in Upper Dir district which borders Swat where the military has launched an air and ground assault on the Taliban.

This was the ninth bomb attack in the NWFP since the army launched a campaign in Swat Valley, where the army chief Gen Ashfaq Kayani has claimed that "the tide was decisively turning in favour of the military."

The suicide bomber blew himself up when people tried to prevent him from entering the mosque. The explosion damaged the mosque and destroyed several nearby shops.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack, which coincided with US Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke's visit to refugee camps in nearby Mardan.

In another similar attack, militants detonated a roadside bomb while a security convoy was passing by killing seven security personnel, including a paramilitary captain and three senior police officers, in Mardan district. The military says nearly 1,300 militants and about 100 soldiers have been killed since the army launched operations in Buner, Lower Dir and Swat districts.

The Taliban has vowed to carry out attacks across Pakistan in retaliation for the military operations. Militants have carried out deadly attacks in Lahore and the northwestern cities of Peshawar and Dera Ismail Khan.

Authorities have increased security in major cities, including Islamabad and Rawalpindi, in recent days due to fears of more attacks. Interior Minister Rehman Malik told reporters today that some suspected bombers were caught in Islamabad and Rawalpindi with suicide jackets.

Meanwhile, Pakistan lawmaker Yaqub Bizenjo was injured in a bomb blast today in his house at the Khyaban-e-Rahat area of Karachi which also wounded three of his family members. The police said the high-intensity blast occured when the occupants of the house opened a parcel sent to the residence of the lawmaker, Geo TV reported.

Bizenjo is Pakistan’s national assembly member from Baluchistan and is a scion of the Bizenjo family, one of the leading families of the province. The injured were immediately rushed to the hospital. — PTI