City mayor killed in mosque blast in northwest Pakistan

A prominent Sunni Muslim mayor of a district town in northwest Pakistan was killed in a bombing of a mosque, hours after a suicide attack in nearby Shia-dominated village left 40 people dead, police said today.

District 'nazim' or mayor Khan Afzal was killed and at least three members of his family were injured when a bomb ripped apart the roof of the mosque near the town Hangu in the North West Frontier Province. It was not immediately clear whether the two blasts were linked.

Azfal was praying at the mosque when the eight kg bomb detonated by a remote control brought the roof on him. He succumbed to his injuries while being taken to hospital, police said.

Meanwhile, the death toll from an overnight suicide car bombing of a market place in Ustarzai village near Kohat jumped from 33 to 44, with five of the injured succumbing to their wounds in hospital and rescue workers digging out six more bodies from the rubble of the Hikmat Ali hotel, area police chief said.

The hotel was among the several buildings destroyed in the blast. Local media reported that little known group calling itself Lashkar-e-Jhangvi Al Almi claimed responsibility for the attack. The group may be linked to Laskhar-e-Jhangvi, a banned Sunni militant outfit with close links to Taliban and al-Qaeda.