Pakistani paramilitary leader killed by suicide bomber


A suicide bomber struck a vehicle carrying the chief of a paramilitary police force in Pakistan, killing him and four others in an attack that ended a relative lull in violence in a city often targeted by the Taliban.

Sifwat Ghayur, the head of the 25,000-strong Frontier Constabulary, is one of the most senior security officials to be killed by militants in the country.

The attack in Peshawar comes as Pakistan's impoverished northwest has been struggling to recover from devastating floods that have killed 1,500 people and affected millions of others, now looking for help from the government.Rescue workers frantically tried to extinguish fires that
engulfed several cars in the minutes after the bomb attack near a major market in the center of Peshawar, which was wracked by bombings late last year but has been relatively quiet in recent months.Ghayur was killed along with his driver and three bodyguards, said Shafiullah Khan, a senior police officer. The explosion also injured 11 other people, he said.