PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A suicide bomber detonated his explosives- packed vehicle in a crowd of people watching a volleyball tournament Friday in northwestern Pakistan, killing at least 88 people in the deadliest attack in the country in more than two months.
The attack in Lakki Marwat city appeared to be retaliation against residents who formed militias to drive militants out of the area, and a meeting of anti-Taliban leaders being held nearby might have been the actual target, police said.
The blast underscores the difficulty Pakistan has had in stopping militants whose reach extends far beyond Pakistan’s lawless tribal belt and who appear increasingly willing to strike civilians as well as security forces.
The attack was not far from South Waziristan, where the army is waging an offensive against the Pakistani Taliban. That operation has provoked apparent reprisal attacks that have killed more than 500 people since October.
No group claimed responsibility for the blast Friday, but that is not uncommon when large numbers of civilians are killed.
“The locality has been a hub of militants. Locals set up a militia and expelled the militants from this area. This attack seems to be reaction to their expulsion,” local police chief Ayub Khan told reporters.
Khan said an anti-Taliban meeting of local tribal elders in a mosque close to the field where the tournament was being held was the real target of the attack, but the driver failed to reach it.
The bomber set off about 550 pounds of high-intensity explosives loaded in the car. The field lies in a congested neighborhood, Khan said.
Local police official Tajammal Shah said today that 88 people were dead and 50 wounded. He said eight children, six paramilitary troops and two police were among the dead.
Omar Gull, 35, a paramilitary soldier who was wounded, told an Associated Press photographer at a nearby hospital that the attacker drove the vehicle recklessly into the crowd.
“People were just trying to understand what’s happening when the bomb went off,” he said. “It was then chaos. It was smoke, dust and cries.”
Another police official, Habib Khan, said about 300 people were on the field when the incident took place.
Regional Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain reiterated the government’s resolve to target militants wherever they might be, saying, “We need to be more offensive to fight them.”
The attack was the deadliest since a car bomb killed 112 people at a crowded market in Peshawar on Oct. 28.
Weeks of violence
A look at some recent militant attacks in South Waziristan, Pakistan:
• Dec. 28: A bomb blast kills at least 44 at a Shiite procession in the southern city of Karachi.
• Dec. 15: A suicide car bomber kills 33 near a lawmaker’s home in the Punjab province town of Dera Ghazi Khan.
• Dec. 7: Two bombs kill 48 at a market in the eastern city of Lahore. A suicide bomber kills 10 people outside a Peshawar court.
• Dec. 4: Gunmen and a suicide bomber attack a mosque in a military installation in Rawalpindi, killing 35.
The Associated Press
