PESHAWAR: At least three people were killed, including a tribal elder, while five others were injured in an improvised explosive device (IED) blast in northwestern Pakistan on Monday, a police official said.
The IED blast took place in the crowded Rustam Bazaar in the northwestern Wana town, District Police Officer (DPO) Muhammad Tahir Shah told Arab News. The explosion took place near Gulshan Plaza at the bazaar when a vehicle carrying Malik Tariq Wazir, the chief of the Ahmadzai Wazir tribe, was passing through the area.
“It was a powerful IED blast planted by terrorists in the main Rustam Bazaar, which left three people martyred, including tribal chief Malik Tariq Wazir, on the spot,” Shah said. “Five others who sustained multiple injuries in the blast were shifted to the District Headquarters Hospital (DHQ) Wana for treatment.”
Shah said a heavy contingent of police and security forces arrived at the site shortly after the explosion. Police have launched an investigation to identify those responsible for the blast.
Apart from Wazir, the other two killed in the explosion were identified as Malik Sarfaraz and Ghulam Rasool. Rescue workers and local residents shifted the injured to the nearest hospital after the explosion, Shah said.
Noor Jamal Wazir, a vegetable trader, said the explosion was so powerful that it shook the entire locality and caused panic among residents.
“People of the area were running in chaos, and then they started evacuating the wounded after the dust from the blast settled,” he said.
Wazir said the slain tribal chief had long played a leading role in resolving local disputes and commanded significant influence in the South Waziristan district.
“He was a key figure advocating peace and tranquility in the region,” Wazir said.
Though no group has claimed responsibility for the blast, the Pakistani Taliban or the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militant group has carried out some of the deadliest attack in recent years against law enforcement agencies and tribal elders.
Security experts have said that attacks on several tribal chiefs in Pakistan’s erstwhile tribal districts over the years have almost paralyzed the leadership of Pashtun tribes of these areas.
Mansur Khan Mahsud, executive director at the Islamabad-based think-tank Fata Research Center, told Arab News earlier that since 2004, a rough estimate shows that around 2,500 to 3,000 tribal elders have been killed in Pakistan.
“For years now, tribal elders remain a soft target for militants who are decimating them systematically because tribal chiefs play the role of a bridge between the government and people,” Mahsud told Arab News in 2024.
Earlier this month, prominent tribal chief Malik Saifullah Dawar was gunned down by unidentified gunmen near his home in the adjacent North Waziristan district.
