Ex-mayor, Son Killed in Pakistan Suicide Attack

A former town mayor, his son and bodyguard were killed and eight other people wounded on Monday when a suicide bomber blew himself up in Pakistan's northwest, police said.

The bomber targeted Hanif Khan Jadoon in Swabi, 90 kilometers east of Peshawar, as he was sitting in his car after offering his Eid prayer.

"It was a suicide attack. The bomber was on foot. Hanif Jadoon was killed on the spot and his security guard died in hospital," Mohammed Ijaz Khan, the Swabi police chief, told Agence France Presse by telephone.

He later said Jadoon's son, Ahmed Khan, had also succumbed to his injuries in hospital. Another eight people were wounded, he added.

It was not clear why Jadoon was targeted but police said he was a member of the Awami National Party, which rules the militant-hit Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, and that could have been a motive.

More than 4,700 people have been killed across Pakistan in attacks blamed on Taliban and other Islamist extremist networks based in the tribal belt since government troops stormed a radical mosque in Islamabad in 2007.