Suicide bomber targets police checkpost, kills 11 in Pakistan

A Taliban suicide bomber today blew himself up near a checkpost in Pakistan's restive northwest, killing at least 11 people, including security personnel and children, and injuring over 30 others in the rush-hour attack.
The bombing, that comes within a week by the outlawed group, occurred near the vehicle of line officer Nawab Shah in Jamrud area of Khyber tribal region, police said.
The explosive device was planted in a motorbike, it said.
The dead include police, civilians and at least one child and officials said the casualties are feared to rise. Some reports also put the number of children killed at 2.

As many as 31 others were injured when the bomb exploded beside a busy road.
A journalist, Mehboob Shah Afridi, besides the target, Shah, were also killed in the attack, the Express Tribune reported.

Eyewitnesses said cars and the area around the site of the blast were engulfed in fire.
Khyber is part of Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal belt on the Afghan border where security forces are fighting the Pakistani Taliban.
The outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the attack, the report said.
"The TTP's martyrdom squad (TSG) carried out the successful attack on the 'khasadar' checkpost near Karkhano bazaar," TTP spokesperson Mohammad Khorasani said in a statement.

Pakistan witnesses frequent bomb and suicide attacks blamed on extremist militant groups and troops have for years been fighting homegrown armed groups in the tribal belt.
On Wednesday last week, the Taliban had struck with a suicide bomber who blew himself up outside a polio vaccination centre in restive Balochistan's capital Quetta, killing at least 15 people, mostly security officials, in the worst attack on the anti-polio campaign in the country.