PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A suicide bomber attacked a livestock market Sunday in a suburb of the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing 12 people, including a mayor who opposed the Taliban.
Abdul Malik, mayor of Adazai, was with bodyguards at the market when the bomber struck. Police official Sahibzada Muhammad Anees said Malik was the target.
Malik, who survived previous attempts on his life by the Taliban, recently organized a tribal militia to keep militants from the neighboring Khyber region out of his village, about 10 miles south of Peshawar.
Police said 35 people were hurt in the blast. Eight of them were in critical condition.
Jafar Shah, who buys and sells cattle at the market, said Malik should have known he was a potential target and was endangering the lives of others by appearing at the market.
“Malik was responsible for the blood bath,” said Shah, who suffered a gash to his shoulder. “He should not have come to the market because he was under threat, and everybody knows the Taliban were pursuing him to eliminate him.”
The attack is the latest in a series of strikes by Taliban militants in retaliation for a large- scale military offensive that Pakistani troops are carrying out against the Taliban in South Waziristan, the militant group’s primary stronghold along the Afghan border.
Military officials say troops have much of South Waziristan under their control and have entered one of the last Taliban havens, the town of Makeen. Military commanders say more than 400 militants have been killed in three weeks of fighting.
