Blast kills policeman in Pakistan

A policeman was killed and eight more were injured when a security vehicle was targetted with a roadside bomb in northwest Pakistan on Saturday, officials said.

The bomb exploded near a police van in Tor Ghar district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, district administration chief Farid Khan said.

A group of policemen were travelling to a training centre when their van was attacked, Khan said. Police officials said nearly 30 recruits were in the vehicle at the time of the blast.

One policeman was killed and eight were injured, they said. The injured were taken to a hospital in Batgram, the main town in the region. No group claimed responsibility for the attack but such bombings are usually blamed on the Taliban.

The government declared the mountainous Tor Ghar (Black Mountain) area a new district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province this year and a new police force is being trained to assume security responsibilities.

Tor Ghar had attracted the world's attention in May, days after the US military raid that killed Osama bin Laden in a compound in Abbotabad. Local media had quoted residents of Tor Ghar as saying that US helicopters had landed in the area to refuel.

Reports said the security agencies had detained several persons in the area for their alleged role in providing fuel to the US military.