Suspected militants attacked an ambulance in a Pakistani tribal region on the Afghan border on Thursday killing at least six people, including two paramilitary soldiers, a government official said.
The ambulance was taking people to a health meeting when it was attacked with a rocket-propelled grenade in the Kurram tribal region, residents of the area said.
”Six people, including two paramilitary soldiers who were travelling in the ambulance have been killed and two wounded in the attack,” said Zaheer-ul-Islam, the region’s top political administrator.
Earlier, a doctor at a hospital in the region’s main town of Parachinar, whose ambulance had been attacked, said there were reports of seven people killed, including two nurses.
Pakistan is reeling from months of violence, including a campaign of suicide bombing from Islamist militants, that has killed nearly 600 people since the start of the year.
Kurram also has a long history of violence between Sunni and Shi’ite Muslim tribes. Forty people were killed in sectarian violence in December.
Sectarian clashes have also erupted in the neighbouring Orakzai tribal agency and soldiers have moved in to stop fighting in which at least 30 people have been killed over the past five days, officials said.
Meanwhile, police said on Thursday they have arrested two men suspected of planning suicide attacks in the eastern city of Lahore.
The city’s police chief, Malik Mohammad Iqbal, told a news conference the pair belonged to a militant group based in the South Waziristan’s tribal region, a haven for al-Qaeda-linked militants.
He said 25 bags of explosives, suicide jackets and dozens of detonators had been recovered.
A police official had earlier said four suspects were arrested.
At least 30 people were killed in three suicide attacks in Lahore, the capital of most populous province of Punjab, this month.
The police official, who was speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the suspects were linked to one of the attacks. – Reuters