3 security personnel among 4 martyred in North Waziristan suicide blast

• One security official and a cop also injured in attack.
• Martyred and injured shifted to Miranshah Hospital.
• DC says suicide bomber blew himself up at the post.

PESHAWAR: At least four, including three security personnel, were martyred after a suicide blast ripped through a checkpoint in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s rugged North Waziristan District near the country's porous border with Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

According to Deputy Commissioner Rehan Gul Khattak, two security officials, a policeman and one civilian embraced martyrdom, while one security man and a cop sustained bullet wounds in the assault.

The injured and the martyred were shifted to the Miranshah Hospital.

DC Khattak said that the suicide bomber blew himself up during routine frisking at a checkpoint manned by several security men and local cops.

This is the second attack by terrorists in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in two days.

A day earlier, a horde of militants armed with rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) struck a private exploration company's gas plant in Tall tehsil of Hangu district, KP, and martyred at least four Frontier Constabulary (FC) personnel and two private security guards, police had said.

Irfan Khan, DSP Tall, told a foreign news agency that terrorists raided the two wells — M-8 and M-10 — with heavy weapons including rocket-propelled grenades.

“The security guards at M-8 repulsed the terrorists’ attack but the casualties took place at M-10," said Khan.

Khan, while talking to Geo News, said the militants also damaged a solar power plant at the gas well before fleeing to adjoining North Waziristan, where they had come from.