Villagers repelled an attack on an anti-Taliban mayor near Peshawar Sunday, police said, as the death toll from the latest suicide bombing to strike the under-siege city rose to 15.
"Four critically injured people including a child succumbed to their injuries in hospitals overnight," taking the death toll to 15, Peshawar district administration chief Sahibzada Anis told AFP. Violence continued to plague the area Sunday, when about 50 militants with the banned Lashkar-e-Islam group set upon the home of Fahimuddin, a local leader who had raised a militia to fight the Taliban.
Fahimuddin told AFP that some of his would-be assassins were disguised in the all-encompassing burqa garments, and approached his home in Bazid Khel village on Peshawar's outskirts. "There were around 50 attackers, three of them wearing burqas managed to reach near my house. My men stopped them and asked for identification but they started firing after flinging off the burqas," said Fahimuddin, who goes by one name only.
"It is 100 percent sure that these people came to kill me. They left behind grenades and Kalashnikovs," he said. Karim Khan, a senior police official in Peshawar, confirmed the attack, and said three militants were killed in the ensuing clash. The rest fled the scene.