Gunmen killed a Pakistani working at the Iranian Consulate in Peshawar on Thursday, the latest in a wave of attacks in or near the largest city in the militant-riddled northwest, said police.
The attacks have killed more than 40 people in the last week alone and come amid a major army offensive against the Taliban’s main sanctuary in the lawless tribal areas near the Afghan border.
Gunmen attacked Abul Hasan Jaffri, who was working as the director of public relations at the consulate, near his home in Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier Province, police official Mohammad Kamal told The Associated Press.
Jaffri was critically wounded in the attack and later died from his injures at a military hospital, he said. The gunmen escaped after the shooting.
Authorities did not speculate on a motive for the attack.
Peshawar has also been a dangerous place for diplomats working in the country. Armed men kidnapped an Iranian diplomat in the city in November 2008, and he has not been released. Earlier that year, gunmen ambushed a car carrying Afghanistan’s ambassador—designate toward his home in Peshawar, killing the driver and abducting the envoy. He has also not been released.
The shooting follows a suicide car bombing on a crowded market outside Peshawar on Tuesday that killed 26 people. A suicide bomber killed three policemen in Peshawar on Monday, and a similar attack a day earlier on a market outside the city killed 12 people, including a mayor who once supported but had turned against the Taliban.
