Separate attacks leave three dead in Pakistan

At least three people including a senior local election official have been killed and nearly 20 others injured in two separate attacks in Pakistan, Press TV reports.

In the first incident on Tuesday, a remote-controlled bomb targeted a police van in the northwestern district of Bannu in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, and killed at least two people. The incident also left at least 18 people injured, with some in critical condition.

This is while, in another incident, gunmen on motorcycles shot and killed a district election commissioner identified as Ziaullah Qasmi in the city of Quetta in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan Province.

The incident marks the first such attack against election officials ahead of the upcoming parliamentary elections in May.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but Pakistani officials put the blame on pro-Taliban militants who have carried out similar assaults in the past.

Militants have carried out numerous attacks against security forces as well as civilians and managed to spread their influence in various regions of the country, despite frequent offensives by the Pakistani army.

Thousands of Pakistanis have lost their lives in bombings and other militant attacks since 2001, when Pakistan entered an alliance with the United States in the so-called “war on terror.”

Thousands more have also been displaced by the wave of violence and militancy in the country.