23 killed in Pakistan unrest

ISLAMABAD (PAN): At least 23 people, including four intelligence officers, were killed in separate incidents of violence in Pakistan, officials said on Sunday.

Six rebels were killed and 10 others injured in a clash with security forces in the Malakdin Khail area of the lawless Khyber tribal region near the Afghanistan border late on Saturday, an official told Pajhwok Afghan News on condition of anonymity.  

Separately, a rocket hit a house, killing two women and four children and wounding four others in the Terah area, Farooq Khan, a local reporter, told Pajhwok Afghan News.

The injured people, some of them in critical condition, were taken to a nearby hospital, said resident Sahib Gul, who added two other people who sustained injuries in a separate rocket attack a month back had died of their wounds.

Elsewhere in the country, the bullet-riddled bodies of four kidnapped military intelligence (MI) officers were found in the Chakwal district of Punjab province on Saturday.  

Interior Minister Rahman Malik told journalists the officers had been kidnapped by a religious group some days ago. Five insurgents were also killed in an operation to rescue the abductees, he said.

mrh/mbg/ma

Visits: 2