MINGORA: A suicide bomber here killed nine people and wounded almost 30 on Sunday when he rammed his car into a military convoy in the restive northwest valley of Swat.
The attack took place near the town of Mingora in the troubled valley, a former tourist haven that has become a flashpoint for violence where the military has been battling followers of a hardline pro-Taliban cleric.
The military in statement confirmed that four security forces personnel and three civilians were killed. It said 15 soldiers and 14 civilians were wounded.
More than 750 people have been killed in militant attacks this year — and more than half of those since July, when the army raided a radical, pro-Taliban mosque in the capital Islamabad, killing 100 people.
The military launched a major offensive in the Swat valley in November, looking to drive out followers of Maulana Fazlullah, a radical cleric who has been looking to establish Islamic sharia law in the region.
He has since gone underground. There have been more than 40 suicide attacks in Pakistan this year, many of them targeting the military and security forces.
The last attack came on Friday, when a bomber wearing a vest packed with ball-bearings blew himself up in a crowded mosque, killing 56 people but missing the intended target, former interior minister Aftab Sherpao.
Sherpao, a close ally of President Pervez Musharraf and a candidate in next month’s parliamentary election, oversaw a government crackdown on militants this year when he was in the cabinet.
He survived another suicide attack in April that killed at least 24 people. The latest bombing came just two weeks ahead of the January 8 vote, which militants have vowed to disrupt.