A day after over 40 people were killed in a suicide attack at a Sufi shrine in southern Punjab, terrorists struck at a bus terminal in the Lower Dir area of Khyber-Pukhtoonkhwa on Monday, killing six people. According to the police, this was another suicide attack. No terrorist network had claimed responsibility for the attack till evening. Since a member of the government-backed peace committee was killed in the blast, speculation was rife that this could be yet another attempt by the terrorists to dissuade locals from aligning with the authorities in the war on terror. Lower Dir is one of the areas that saw military operations in 2009 when the Army undertook the task of flushing out terrorists from Swat and Buner. The district adjoins the Federally Administered Tribal Agency of Bajaur.
This is the fourth suicide attack in the north-western parts of the country over the past week. In two of these attacks, the target is said to have been the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (F) chief Maulana Fazl-ur Rehman.
