Gunmen kill 4 cops PESHAWAR: A car bomb killed nine people close to the main northwestern city of Peshawar Wednesday, the latest in a rash of attacks that are challenging recent police claims of progress against militants in the region. Twenty others were wounded in the blast on a main road leading to Pakistan's border area with Afghanistan, said government official Siraj Ahmed Khan. Three children were among the dead. It was the third major bombing in or near the city in the last week. In the nearby Orakzai tribal region, fighter jets pounded suspected militant hideouts, killing 15 alleged militants and wounding 10 others, said local government administrator Aurangzeb Khan. Also Wednesday, gunmen shot dead four Pakistani police and abducted six other people, including a top administrator, in the volatile southwest bordering Afghanistan and Iran. The incidents took place overnight in the Aab-e-Gum area of the mountainous Bolan region, 60 km south of Quetta. “Gunmen shot dead four policemen on the main highway in Aab-e-Gum while they were heading towards Quetta,” local senior police official Junaid Ahmad said. “Earlier, we had reports of five police being killed but one of the policemen, who disappeared into the nearby mountains reported to his bosses on Wednesday morning.” Baluchistan's home secretary Akbar Hussain Durrani said gunmen also abducted the deputy head of administration in Jhal Magsi town, Shaukat Murghazani, another two civilians and three policemen on the same highway late Tuesday. “The gunmen allowed family members of Murghazani also travelling with him to go,” Durrani said.
