Six family members killed by roadside bomb while driving to funeral

Soldiers carry a victim of a blast in Quetta, Pakistan. Picture: Naseer Ahmed/Reuters

Soldiers carry a victim of a blast in Quetta, Pakistan. Picture: Naseer Ahmed/Reuters

Published Jan 30, 2018

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Parachinar, Pakistan - An explosion ripped

through a car on Tuesday killing six members of a family driving

to a Pakistan village to attend a funeral in the northwestern

district of Kurram near the Afghanistan border, officials said.

It was unclear whether the blast was a landmine or a

roadside bomb planted by Islamist militants, said local

government official Akbar Iftikhar. Both the militants and the

Pakistani military use landmines.

"Three women and three men died on the spot," he said.

One survivor was in a stable condition, said Doctor Mumtaz

Hussain at a hospital in Parachinar, the main town in Kurram.

Kurram is one of the seven districts along the Afghan border

in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), which have

long been home to local and foreign Islamist militants.

Kurram is a predominantly minority Shi'a Muslim region that

is often targeted by Sunni militant groups such as al Qaeda and

the Islamic State. The six family members, however, belonged to

Sunni sect, Iftikhar said.

The region has lately been the target of suspected US drone strikes, which mainly took out members of Haqqani militant

network that is allied with Afghan Taliban and operates on both

sides of the border.

The Haqqanis have been at the centre of the current tensions

between the United States and Pakistan. Washington alleges that

Islamabad supports the Haqqani militants, who attack the US and allied NATO troops in Afghanistan.

Reuters

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