Twin Bomb Attacks In Pakistan Injure Nine

Police examine a damaged police van following a bomb attack in Quetta.

A double bomb attack has injured nine people in Pakistan's northwestern town of Akora Khattak.

Officials said police and journalists were among the injured in the twin blasts on May 9 at the tomb of a Pashtun nationalist leader, Ajmal Khattak.

Officials said that after a first bomb went off, a second explosion hit police and journalists who had gone to the scene.

Officials said five policemen and four local journalists were among the wounded.

Officials said the bombs were timed devices.

There has been no claim of responsibility so far, but authorities said Islamist militants are suspected.

Meanwhile, officials say a bomb attack targeting a Pakistani police patrol has killed one policeman and wounded three other police in the southwestern city of Quetta.

Police said the device was detonated by remote control as a police vehicle passed on a routine patrol on the outskirts of Quetta, capital of Balochistan Province.

Police are frequently attacked in Balochistan.

On May 8, senior police official Shah Nawaz Khan was assassinated in Quetta in a drive-by shooting claimed by the Al-Qaeda-linked militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.

Thousands have been killed since separatist Baloch rebels rose up in 2004, demanding political autonomy and a greater share of profits from oil, gas, and mineral resources in the region.

Based on reporting by AFP and RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal