PESHAWAR: A suicide bomber killed a senior provincial minister and seven other people at a political meeting in northwest Pakistan on Saturday, officials said, in an attack claimed by the Taliban.
The bomber struck when around 100 people including the provincial leadership of the Awami National Party (ANP) had gathered at a meeting in the city of Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
The blast killed Bashir Bilour, the number two to the chief minister of the province, which is on the frontline of Pakistan's fight against homegrown militancy and is frequently hit by gun and bomb attacks.
A week ago a Taliban suicide car bomber and militants armed with rockets attacked Peshawar airport, a joint military-civilian facility, killing five people.
A day later police and troops fought a fierce gunbattle with Taliban fighters who fled after the airport attack and holed up in a building, taking six hours to quell the militants.
The 69-year-old Bilour, a fierce opponent of the Pakistani Taliban, suffered severe injuries in Saturday's blast and died in hospital, Arbab Ayub Jan, a minister in the provincial cabinet of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, told AFP.
A notice on the information board of Peshawar's Lady Reading Hospital also announced Bilour and seven others were dead and said 18 people were injured in the attack.
Bilour had "wounds to the chest and stomach. We tried our best to save his life" but he died during surgery, Arshad Javed, a senior doctor at the hospital told AFP.
The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) said they targeted Bilour in revenge for the death of one of their elders.
"We claim responsibility for killing Bashir Ahmed Bilour. It is revenge for the martyrdom of our elder Sheikh Naseeb Khan," TTP spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan told AFP.
Khan was a teacher at a madrassa where many Taliban members were educated.
Bilour's brother Ghulam Ahmad Bilour, the federal railways minister, sparked international condemnation in September when he offered US$100,000 to anyone who killed the maker of a controversial anti-Islam film.
The TTP said they had taken him off their "hit list" after he offered the bounty and in Saturday's statement stressed they had struck Bashir Bilour while his brother was not with him.
Bomb squad experts said the suicide bomber detonated his explosives when the meeting was at its peak.
"The suicide bomber walked into the house where the meeting was taking place and detonated his vest," Shafqat Malik, chief of the bomb disposal squad, told AFP.
Zahidullah, 30, a shopkeeper in the area, said he was standing to Bilour's rear when the bomber struck.
"The meeting was about to finish when I heard a noise and soon afterwards I saw a blue flame and then the blast hit," he told AFP.
Asif Iqbal, a senior police official, told AFP the dead also included Bilour's secretary and a policeman, as well as ANP workers. Four policemen were among the wounded.
As well as ruling in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the secular ANP is also part of the Pakistan People's Party-led national coalition government in Islamabad and Saturday's attack comes ahead of elections expected in the spring.
- AFP/jc
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