16 Sep 2011 09:02
Source: reuters // Reuters
DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan, Sept 16 (Reuters) - The death toll from a suicide bombing at a funeral in Pakistan's northwest climbed to 40 on Friday, police said.
No one has claimed responsibility for Thursday's attack on the funeral of a pro-government tribesman in Lower Dir district near the Afghan border, where Taliban militants have carried out numerous attacks in recent years.
More people succumbed to their wounds overnight, raising the death toll to 40, with 68 wounded, police official Saleem Marwat told Reuters.
"Militants have targeted people who are supporting the government against them, and there is a possibility that those same people are behind this attack."
Pakistani Taliban militants have stepped up attacks on pro-government Pashtun tribes recently.
The militants claimed responsibility for an attack on a school bus on Tuesday which killed five people, saying the children on the bus were from a pro-government tribe.
The U.S.-backed government has persuaded some tribes to take up arms against militant groups.
The Pakistani Taliban are holding hostage more than 20 young men from another pro-government Pashtun tribe in an area straddling the border with Afghanistan and have demanded the release of scores of prisoners and an end to support of offensives against them.
The teenage tribesmen from the northwestern Bajaur region were abducted by the militants on Aug. 31 while they were on an outing in Afghanistan's border province of Kunar.
(Reporting by Saud Mehsud; Writing by Augustine Anthony; Editing by Robert Birsel)
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