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10 killed in Pakistan blast

ISLAMABAD: At least 10 people were killed and 20 injured in a bomb attack on a Shia funeral procession in Pakistan’s troubled North-West Frontier Province on Friday.

The attack, which police have said may have been the work of a suicide bomber, took place in Dera Ismail Khan, where Shia-Sunni tensions run high.

The mourners were headed for the burial of a young Shia shopkeeper who was murdered on Thursday night.

Hours before the bombing of the funeral procession, a prominent Shia cleric was also killed in the same city.

The city was reported to be in the grip of high tension after the attack.

Earlier this year, a suicide bomber targeted a hospital in Dera Ismail Khan killing several people in an attack that clearly targeted the Shia community.

Friday’s bomb attack followed a suicide bombing at a mosque in Bajaur tribal agency on Thursday night in which nine people were killed. The Pakistan military is conducting operations against Taliban militants in Bajaur, some of them with the help of local tribal militias known as lashkars.

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