Suicide blast at Pakistan funeral kills 13

A suicide bomber blew himself up at a funeral near the northwestern city of Peshawar on Sunday, killing at least 13 people and wounding more than 30 others, police and hospital officials said.

The blast went off near a graveyard where people had just offered funeral prayers in the Badaber area on the outskirts of Peshawar, senior police officer Kalam Khan said.

"It was a suicide attack, we have found the head and legs of the bomber," he said. "At least 13 people have died and more than 30 wounded," he said.

Doctor Rahim Jan, head of the local Lady Reading Hospital confirmed the casualties.

"We have 13 dead, they are all male. There are 34 wounded and five of them are in serious condition," Jan said.

Peshawar police chief Imtiaz Altaf also said he believed it was a suicide bombing. About eight kilograms of explosives had been used in the blast, he said.

Nobody claimed responsibility for the blast but Islamist militants have carried out several attacks in the area.

The blast went off after mourners had offered prayers for a local woman.

Police believe the deputy speaker of the provincial assembly, Khushdil Khan, who was present at the funeral, could have been the target.

Khushdil Khan, a member of the secular Awami National Party, has formed an anti-Taliban militia in the area and is on Pakistani Taliban militants' hit list, police officer Khan said.

"He was not hurt, he is safe," Khan added.

The site of blast was littered with human limbs and trails of blood soon after the bombing, witnesses said.

"We lifted the coffin and headed towards the graveyard after the prayers when a huge blast was heard," said Saddam Hussain, 21. "There were body parts and blood stains. People were crying for help.

"There was no doctor and no ambulance. People who had come to attend the funeral put the casualties in their cars and rushed to the hospital. I myself put one wounded man in a car heading to the hospital," Hussain told AFP.

In the hospital Zahir Shah, 40, wailed with grief near the body of his elder brother Raees Khan.

"Why did you murder my brother? He was so beautiful," he said. "This morning we had our breakfast together. My mother will not survive if I show her his body."

Peshawar has a population of 2.5 million people and has long been on the frontline of violence blamed on an insurgency led by Taliban militants opposed to Islamabad's alliance with the United States.

Islamist militants have killed more than 4,900 people across Pakistan since government troops raided an extremist mosque in Islamabad in July 2007.

Sunday's funeral bombing was the first since September 15 when a suicide bomber targeting anti-Taliban militia killed 46 people at a funeral in the northwestern district of Lower Dir.

Pakistan has battled a homegrown insurgency for years, with more than 3,000 soldiers killed in the battle against militancy.

There were about 120 bomb attacks in Pakistan in 2011, up on the 96 bomb blasts in 2010, but far lower than violence in 2009 when there were 203 bombings across the country, according to an AFP tally.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/suicide-blast-pakistan-funeral-kills-12-075137574.html

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