A former Pakistani senator was killed when a car carrying him and his supporters hit a roadside bomb in a former Pakistani Taliban stronghold near the Afghanistan border, police said.
KHAIL, Pakistan — A former Pakistani senator was killed Wednesday when a vehicle carrying him and his supporters struck a roadside bomb in a former Pakistani Taliban stronghold near the Afghanistan border, police said, killing two others.
Two others were wounded in the attack in Bajr district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, according to local police chief Bahat Bunal, who said former senator Hidayatullah Khan was travelling in a motorcade to attend an election rally.
President Asif Ali Zardari and other government officials condemned the blast.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, and the Pakistani Taliban said in a statement that they were not involved. Bajr was until recently a stronghold of a group known as the Pakistani Taliban (TTP), which is allied with the Afghan Taliban.
The withdrawal of international troops in 2021 and the Taliban’s seizure of power in Afghanistan emboldened the TTP.
Pakistani officials often claim that the Afghan Taliban government is providing cover for TTP fighters, and the Afghan Taliban government maintains that it will not allow any country to use Afghan territory for violence.
Wednesday’s attack came nearly a year after a suicide bomber blew himself up at a Jamiat Ulema Islami party political rally in Bajour, killing dozens of people and wounding 200 others.
