Three killed in a roadside explosion in NW Pakistan

A roadside bomb attack today killed at least three people including two children in a restive Pakistani region near the Afghan border, officials said.
It was the third attack in as many days in the Mohmand tribal region, one of seven such semi-autonomous districts where the military has been battling Al-Qaeda and Taliban-linked militants for over a decade.
Two separate bomb attacks had Monday killed at least three people and wounded two others including a senior Pakistani army official.
"An improvised explosive (IED) device planted along the roadside exploded as a vehicle carrying five people including a driver passed by, killing two children aged eight and 10 and the driver on the spot," a senior local administration official, Naveed Akbar, told AFP.

He said two passengers were injured in the attack.
"The security agencies are investigating the incident as the target of the attack is unclear," Akbar said, adding dozens of IEDs have been planted along roads in Mohmand.

The army has intensified its offensive since the Taliban's massacre of 153 people, 134 of them children, in a school in Peshawar last December.
Overall, levels of militant-linked violence have dropped dramatically this year, with 2015 on course for the fewest deaths among civilian and security forces since 2007 -- the year the Pakistani Taliban umbrella group was formed.
Pakistan's Islamist insurgency began after the US-led invasion of neighbouring Afghanistan in 2001, which led to a spillover of militants across the border and a surge in recruitment for Pakistani extremist groups.