Bus explosion kills 7 in Pakistan

A bomb explosion on a passenger bus in Pakistan has killed at least seven people and wounded 11 others.

The attack took place on the outskirts of Peshawar in northwestern Pakistan. A senior police officer, Shafqat Malik, described the bombing as an "act terrorism" and said the perpetrators would not go unpunished.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, but a local police investigator, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters news agency that it could have been a sectarian attack, as most of the passengers on the bus were Shiites.

Sectarian violence between Sunni majority and Shiite minority Muslims is rife in the region.

Thursday's explosion came amid an operation launched by Pakistan's military in mid June against Taliban and other extremists in North and South Waziristan, which borders Afghanistan and has long been a safe haven for extremist insurgents.

So far, over 1,000 militants and nearly 90 soldiers have been killed in the offensive, according to military figures, since it was initiated after a Taliban attack on Karachi airport on June 10 that killed 28 people.

"In the last 24 hours, a bomb disposal squad has detonated six bombs in various localities of Peshawar," Shafqat Malik told reporters at the site of the blast. He added that Thursday's was the seventh which had gone off and that 5kg of explosives had been used to make it.

sb/glb (Reuters, AP, AFP)