HANGU, Pakistan, March 5, (Agencies): A suicide bomber attacked a convoy of civilians guarded by security forces in Pakistan’s northwest on Friday, killing at least 12 people and wounding 30, police said.
Suicide bombings have eased in recent weeks but it is not clear whether that is because security has improved after military gains against the Taleban, or if the insurgents are merely regrouping for more attacks.
“Our convoy was hit by a big explosion,” said witness Javed Hussain, who was in the convoy of vehicles carrying Shiite Muslims to the city of Peshawar. “It’s all chaos here. I myself have seen four dead, two of them are children. I have seen four wounded women.”
Pakistan’s Taleban militants, who are Sunni Muslims, have carried out waves of bombings, killing hundreds of people and hitting everything from crowded markets to mosques to military and police facilities in their drive to topple the US-backed government.
Shiites, a minority in Pakistan, have also been targeted.
Mir Chaman, deputy superintendent of police in Hangu, said at least 12 people were killed and 30 wounded. Pakistan, a nuclear-armed nation, has launched two major offensives in the northwest over the past year against the al-Qaeda-backed Taleban, who want to impose their austere version of Islamic rule.
The operations have destroyed militant bases, and Taleban leader Hakimullah Mehsud is widely believed to have been killed in a US drone strike in January. His predecessor was killed in a similar strike in August.
But the Taleban have proven resilient, often melting away during government offensives to other parts of the lawless northwest, a global hub for militants.
That’s one reason why Pakistan has resisted pressure to also go after Afghan Taleban groups who cross the frontier to attack Western forces in Afghanistan.
Kohat commissioner Khalid Khan told AFP the 12 dead included four women and two children. Police said 30 people were wounded.
“The target was a Shiite convoy. This is sectarian violence,” he said. Police said a curfew had been slapped on the market area.
“The dead include seven Shiite community members who were travelling in the convoy,” said police officer Abdul Rashid Khan.
Local lawmaker Mufti Janan Ahmed said the bomber ploughed his vehicle into the centre of the 20-vehicle convoy, which was carrying Shiite travellers coming from the northwestern towns of Parachinar to Kohat.
 Police official Islamuddin Khattak said the blast destroyed five vehicles and police were battling to extinguish the resulting blaze.
Sectarian violence between Sunni and Shiite Muslims has killed more than 4,000 people in Pakistan since the late 1980s. Shiites account for about 20 percent of the country’s 167 million people.
More than 3,000 people have been killed in suicide and bomb attacks across Pakistan since July 2007, a campaign blamed on Islamist militants opposed to the government’s alliance with the United States.