3 policemen killed in suicide attack in Pak

Islamabad, Oct 16 (PTI) At least three policemen were
killed Thursday when a suicide bomber detonated an explosive-
laden car in a police station in Pakistan's restive Swat
valley in a pre-dawn attack.

The attack in Mingora, the main city in Swat district,
also injured over 20 security personnel, police said.

The bomber rammed his explosive-laden car inside the
heavily guarded police station at 1 A.M., when most of the
security personnel were asleep.

Officials said the security personnel on duty allowed
the car inside the compound, thinking that it was a police
armoured vehicle. But when they realized that it was not a
police vehicle, they started firing at the car. The bomber
then exploded the vehicle in center of the complex, a police
officer said.

The attack destroyed several rooms in the police
station and damaged nearby markets and houses, witnesses said.

The injured were taken to a hospital in nearby Saidu
Sharif city. Three critically injured persons were later
shifted to the North West Frontier Province capital of
Peshawar, police said.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack
though the local Taliban are usually blamed for such strikes.

Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan Wednesday defended
suicide attacks, saying they are a reaction to military
operations in the Pakistan's tribal belt and the Swat valley.
His comments came a day after a council of senior Pakistani
clerics declared suicide attacks as "un-Islamic" in a 'fatwa'
or decree.

Suicide attacks have killed some 1,200 Pakistanis,
most of them civilians, since July last year, according to
military statistics released last month.