Police say bomb kills at least 2 people in Pakistan’s northwestern Swat Valley

Bomb kills 2 people in Pakistan’s Swat Valley

MINGORA, Pakistan — A powerful bomb ripped through a busy market area in the main city in Pakistan’s Swat Valley on Saturday, killing at least two people in the area that the army wrested back from the Taliban last year, police said.

Senior police official Qazi Ghulam Farooq said the bomb also wounded six people and damaged several shops in Mingora, the main city in the northwestern Swat district.

The attack happened shortly after security forces arrested a militant from the area following a tip-off that a suicide bomber had entered the area, he said.

Once a favorite tourist destination in Pakistan, the Swat Valley began falling under the Taliban’s sway in 2007. Despite small army offensives, the valley fell under insurgent control that lasted until 2009.

Authorities initially tried to ensure peace there through talks and even agreed to enforce Islamic laws to meet a demand from the local Taliban chief Maulana Fazlullah, who was leading insurgents.

But the efforts failed when militants began to infiltrate the Buner region just south of the valley. Subsequently, the military launched a major offensive in the picturesque region and took it back in the mid of 2009.

Meanwhile, a roadside bomb exploded near a police vehicle in southwestern city of Quetta on Saturday, wounding 7 people, police official Ghulam Nabi said.

Quetta is the capital of Baluchistan province, where nationalists have waged a slow-scale insurgency for years to demand more autonomy and a greater share of income from the area’s natural resources.

Associated Press Writer Abdul Sattar contributed to this report from Quetta.