Two people died Friday in the attempted assassination of a former Pakistani federal minister and senior leader of a leftist political party in the insurgency-plagued North-West Frontier Province, officials said, according to dpa. Unknown gunmen opened fire on the car of Afzal Khan Lala in the village of Matta in the Swat district as he was driving home from a funeral, killing his driver and bodyguard, local police chief Iqbal Ahmed told the Dawn news channel. The former minister for Kashmir affairs in the 1990s, his nephew and two companions were injured in the attack, which Ahmed said was likely the work of pro-Taliban militants.
