PESHAWAR, Pakistan // A former mayor, his son and bodyguard were killed and eight others wounded yesterday when a suicide bomber blew himself up in Pakistan's north-west.
The bomber targeted Hanif Khan Jadoon in Swabi, 90 kilometres east of Peshawar, as he was sitting in his car after offering his Eid prayer.
"It was a suicide attack. The bomber was on foot. Hanif Jadoon was killed on the spot and his security guard died in hospital," said Mohammad Ijaz Khan, the Swabi police chief.
He later announced that Jadoon's son, Ahmed Khan, had also succumbed to his injuries in hospital and that another eight people were wounded.
It was not clear why Jadoon was targeted but police said he was a member of the Awami National Party, which rules the militant-hit Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, and that could have been a motive.
More than 4,700 people have been killed across Pakistan in attacks blamed on Taliban and other Islamist extremist networks in the tribal belt since government troops stormed a radical mosque in Islamabad in 2007.
* Agence-France Presse