Bomb kills three in northwestern Pakistan: police

PESHAWAR - Agence France-Press

Pakistani security officials, media persons and rescue workers gather next to the damaged vehicles at the site of bomb blast in Peshawar, Pakistan on Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2012. AP photo

A bomb explosion killed at least three people and wounded more than 20 others at a Sufi shrine in Pakistan's northwestern city of Nowshera on Sunday, police said.
 
The explosion took place near the main gate of Kaka Saheb shrine in the city while people were visiting it on the second day of the Muslim religious festival of Eid-al-Adha.
 
"It was a bomb explosion, which killed three people and wounded more than 20 others," senior local police official Hussain Khan told AFP. The shrine itself did not sustain major damage.
 
Mian Iftikhar Hussain, information minister for the Khyber Pakhthunkhwa province where the attack occurred, also confirmed the incident and casualties.
 
He said: "According to our initial information it was a remote-controlled bomb but we are waiting for a final report from the bomb disposal officials." The shrine houses the grave of a famous Pashtun Sufi saint Kasteer Gul, who is known as Kaka Saheb.
 
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Taliban and Al-Qaeda linked militants have frequently targeted shrines as part of a five-year insurgency concentrated in the northwest.
 
Suicide and bomb attacks blamed on Islamist insurgents have killed more than 5,200 people since July 2007 across nuclear-armed Pakistan.