68 killed in Charsadda suicide attacks

PESHAWAR: Sixty-eight people were killed Friday and over 100 hurt when suicide bombs ripped through a group of paramilitary police as they were about to be bussed home on leave from a training centre.

The explosions detonated as newly trained cadets were getting into buses and coaches for a 10-day leave after their course, and they were wearing civilian clothes, police said.

The attacks took place in the Shabqadar area, about 30 kilometres (19 miles) north of Peshawar.

"Sixty-eight people have been killed," the police chief of the northwestern Charsadda district, Nisar Khan Marwat, told media.

"Sixty-five of them are from the paramilitary police. Three dead bodies of civilians were taken to Shabqadar hosiptal," he added.

Twelve vehicles were destroyed in the blasts, Marwat said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the Pakistani Taliban last week threatened to attack security forces to avenge bin Laden's killing in a US helicopter raid north of the capital Islamabad on May 2.

They were the deadliest attacks in Pakistan since November 5 when a suicide bomber killed 68 people at a mosque in the northwest area of Darra Adam Khel.

More than 4,300 people have been killed in suicide and bomb attacks across Pakistan in the past four years since 2007.