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Ten killed as Taliban attack legislator's house in Pakistan

Other News Materials 25 August 2008 09:00 (UTC +04:00)

At least 10 people were killed on Saturday as pro-Taliban militants attacked the residence of a member of parliament in North-Western Frontier Province (NWFP), officials said.

Dozens of heavily-armed militants targeted the house of Waqar Ahmad Khan with several rockets in Kabal area of the restive Swat valley.

Waqar was not in the house when the attack took place but his brother Iqbal Khan died as did his two nephews. Seven bodyguards were also killed in the raid, police said.

A spokesman of radical cleric Maulana Fazlullah, who is leading an armed struggle for the enforcement of Taliban rule in Swat, accepted responsibility for the assassinations.

Waqar is a member of the liberal and secular Awami National Party (ANP) that leads the provincial government in NWFP.

An ANP spokesman Zahid Khan condemned the rocket attack. "This is an act which stands in absolute violation of Islamic as well as local Pakhtun traditions," he said, according to dpa.

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