The attack took place at a checkpoint in the northwestern Pakistani town of Hangu`s Doaba area. — File

KOHAT The country`s security apparatus suffered a devastating blow on Saturday when a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into a military checkpost in Hangu, eliminating 23 soldiers.

Seven policemen, 10 security personnel and nine civilians were injured in the blast.

`A suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden vehicle into our check-post close to a police station in Doaba,` a security official said. `We suffered the most casualties.`

Some officials said the bomber had rammed his vehicle into a Thall-bound military convoy in Doaba, on Hangu-Parachinar highway.

They said 11 vehicles, which were part of the convoy, had been destroyed in the attack, which happened not far from the army camp. The military, however, denied its convoy had been hit.

Eyewitnesses said security forces cordoned off the area and blocked the Kohat-Parachinar highway at Doaba and nobody was allowed to go near the scene of the explosion.

The army called its own bomb disposal squad from Thall Garrison. The check-post was located on the Hangu-Parachinar road, which remained closed for more than a year when militants blocked the artery to stop food and fuel supplies from reaching Parachinar, the Kurram Agency`s headquarters.

In another incident earlier on Saturday morning, one person was killed and three were injured in a blast in Malikabad area of Hangu bazaar.

The SHO of Doaba police station, Ammal Khan, and constable Asal Murad, who were sitting in a mobile van close to the army camp, were injured.

Police said the bomber had used 100kg of explosives. They blamed the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan for the strike, but the banned militant outfit did not claim responsibility for the bombing.

The dead and the seriously injured were taken to the civil hospital in Hangu and the Combined Military Hospital in Thall, a police spokesman for the Kohat region said.

Preliminary reports suggested that the suicide bomber had come to the area on Friday and took up residence in Hangu. `It was in the knowledge of the terrorists that a convoy would pass through the camp on Saturday afternoon,` a local said.

Hangu has seen bloodletting bred by sectarianism over the past two years. A total of 48 people had died in sectarian clashes during Muharram last year.

The military had carried out a major clean-up operation in Doaba in August last year to flush out militants who had infiltrated from nearby Kurram and Orakzai regions.

Helicopter gunships have been attacking suspected militant hideouts in Orakzai during the last couple of weeks. `Most of the casualties are security forces and some policemen have also been killed,` a security official said.

`The bomber was driving a pick-up truck which he rammed into a convoy passing by a security checkpost,` senior police officer Fareed Khan said in Kohat.

President Asif Ali Zardari, who is in China attending an international economic conference, `condemned the attack and vowed to root out terrorism and extremism from the country`, the presidency said in a statement.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani `strongly condemned` the incident, describing the suicide attack as `a cowardly act of terrorism`, his office said in a statement.