Pakistani officials say at least 15 people have been killed in suicide car bombing in a tribal area in northwestern Pakistan.
Authorities say the explosion Saturday apparently targeted a pro-government militia created to fight Taliban militants.
Some 30 other people were wounded in the blast in Darra Adam Khel in restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province near Afghanistan.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
Meanwhile, children in Pakistan and Afghanistan prayed for the recovery of a 14-year-old Pakistani girl shot in the head and neck by the Taliban.
Malala Yousafzai was attacked on Tuesday as she left school. She has been internationally recognized for promoting education for girls and documenting Taliban atrocities in the area near her home in the northwestern Swat Valley.
Pakistani Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf has called the shooting a “crime against humanity,” and an attack on Pakistan’s core moral and social values.
Yousafzai remains unconscious and on a ventilator.
On Friday, Pakistani police arrested several shooting suspects in Swat Valley.
Yousafzai wrote under a pseudonym - Gul Makai - in a blog published by the BBC. In her blog, she described life under the Taliban in 2008 and 2009, when militants carried out beheadings and other violence in the territory they controlled - large areas of the Swat Valley in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province.
A Taliban spokesman in the Swat Valley said Friday the group's leaders decided a few months ago to kill Yousafzai, and assigned gunmen to carry it out. The Taliban has said she is "pro-West," and that she denounced the militant group and called U.S. President Barack Obama her idol.
Authorities say the explosion Saturday apparently targeted a pro-government militia created to fight Taliban militants.
Some 30 other people were wounded in the blast in Darra Adam Khel in restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province near Afghanistan.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
Meanwhile, children in Pakistan and Afghanistan prayed for the recovery of a 14-year-old Pakistani girl shot in the head and neck by the Taliban.
Malala Yousafzai was attacked on Tuesday as she left school. She has been internationally recognized for promoting education for girls and documenting Taliban atrocities in the area near her home in the northwestern Swat Valley.
Pakistani Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf has called the shooting a “crime against humanity,” and an attack on Pakistan’s core moral and social values.
Yousafzai remains unconscious and on a ventilator.
On Friday, Pakistani police arrested several shooting suspects in Swat Valley.
Yousafzai wrote under a pseudonym - Gul Makai - in a blog published by the BBC. In her blog, she described life under the Taliban in 2008 and 2009, when militants carried out beheadings and other violence in the territory they controlled - large areas of the Swat Valley in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province.
A Taliban spokesman in the Swat Valley said Friday the group's leaders decided a few months ago to kill Yousafzai, and assigned gunmen to carry it out. The Taliban has said she is "pro-West," and that she denounced the militant group and called U.S. President Barack Obama her idol.
Some information for this report was provided by AP and AFP.
