May 14, 2008	Wednesday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 8, 1429

LANDI KOTAL, May 13: An army vehicle was partially damaged when a time bomb planted on main Peshawar-Torkhum highway near Ali Masjid went off on Tuesday.

Sources said that two military vehicles were on their way to Landi Kotal when one of them was hit by the time device in Ali Masjid area.

The front portion of the vehicle was partially damaged and its wind screen smashed due to the explosion. No body was injured in the blast.

Local political administration registered a case against unidentified saboteurs and started investigations.

It is worth mentioning that Pakistan Ambassador to Afghanistan Tariq Azizuddin along with his security guard and driver was abducted by unidentified persons from the same locality of February 11 while they were on their way to Kabul via Torkhum border.

Sources said that militants intensified their activities in the Khyber tribal region recently and scores of heavily armed persons riding pick-ups and jeeps were seen patrolling Peshawar-Torkhum road during the last three weeks.

Meanwhile, armed activists of Haji Namdar group raided several houses in Sara Garhai village of Chora locality in Landi Kotal tehsil on Tuesday and busted two heroin manufacturing laboratories. They also took into their custody some inmates of the houses. A spokesman of the group told Dawn that their group would completely wipe out contrabands business from the area.

EXPLOSION: Weapons and household items worth millions of rupees were burnt to ashes due to a fire caused by a mysterious explosion at the house of a fire-brand controversial cleric in Landi Kotal on Monday night.

The midnight explosion also damaged a portion of the house of Mula Hazrat Nabi alias Thamanche Mula. Hazrat Nabi, however, insisted that the explosion was caused by a gas cylinder.

Sources said that a huge quantity of arms was stockpiled at the room where the explosion took place. Hazrat Nabi and his family members run arms business.

Our Correspondent from Kohat adds: Personnel of Saddar police station during a routine patrol on Rawalpindi road on Monday night survived a remote controlled blast.

The police sources said that the device weighing 10 kilogram was planted at Bahawalnagar Chowk on Rawalpindi road. The device went off at around 9:30pm when the Saddar police patrol van was about to pass the place. The explosion was heard in a radius of 15 kilometres and window pans and doors of shops and houses in the vicinity were shattered.