A dozen Khasadar men killed in Khyber blasts

ISLAMABAD (Pajhwok): A dozen people were killed when two back-to-back blasts struck security forces’ vehicles escorting a polio vaccination team in Pakistan border on Saturday, officials said.

Jahangir Wazir, an official at the Political Agent Office, told reporters the remotely-controlled roadside bomb explosions took place in the Lashoro area of Jamrud district near Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

He said a dozen Khasadar security men were killed and three others injured in the blasts that comprehensively destroyed one Khasadar vehicle and partially damaged another.

The injured have been taken to hospitals, he said, adding one of them was said to be in

critical condition. He said the polio workers had escaped unhurt.

However, media reports in Pakistan said 10 Khasadar militiamen were killed and as many injured in the latest attack on efforts to stamp out the crippling disease in Pakistan, one of only three countries where polio remains endemic.

Assistant Political Agent Nasir Khan put the death toll at 10, included a child. Eight of the wounded were brought to the Jamrud hospital, two others taken to the Hayatabad Medical Complex in Peshawar.

According to the World Organization (WHO), Pakistan recorded 91 cases of polio last year, up from 58 in 2012. WHO has warned that Peshawar is the world’s “largest reservoir” of polio.

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