Bomb kills 8 soldiers in Pakistan

A remote-controlled bomb blast killed eight Pakistani troops and wounded three others Thursday in a restive Pakistani tribal region near the Afghan border, officials said. The incident took place in Bara, the main town in the lawless Khyber tribal region where Taliban and al-Qaida-linked militants have carved out strongholds. "At least eight troops including an officer were killed and three others wounded in a bomb explosion, targeting two vehicles of the paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC)," a spokesman for the force told AFP. The vehicles were on a routine patrol when attack happened, he added. Earlier, the spokesman had said that four troops were killed and six wounded. Local government official Nasir Khan also confirmed the new toll. Pakistan's seven tribal districts near the Afghan border are rife with homegrown insurgents and are strongholds of Taliban and al-Qaida operatives. Washington calls it the most dangerous region on Earth. Elsewhere in the northwestern Haripur district, three Pakistani men, allegedly arrested by security forces when they disappeared a year ago, were found dead Thursday after authorities ordered that they be produced alive in court. The case spotlights the plight of the "missing" in Pakistan, where judges are seeking to bring the powerful military and intelligence agencies to book over mass arrests of alleged terror suspects, who are never seen again. According to a preliminary autopsy report, the three men aged 30 to 35 were recently killed -- first poisoned, then their necks were broken. Their bodies were discovered in the district of Haripur, part of the northwest where the army has been fighting to put down a Taliban insurgency. "The dead bodies were recovered from three different places," Mohammad Ali Gandapur, district police chief, told AFP. He said police were investigating who killed them and why. Relatives of one of the victims told police he was arrested by security forces and had been missing for 11 months, Gandapur said. Television footage showed the bodies being taken away by ambulance, accompanied by relatives and rescue workers. A senior police official, speaking only on condition of anonymity, said the victims had been arrested by intelligence agencies. An unnamed relative said the victims were three of 170 missing people ordered to be produced court by judges in the northwestern capital Peshawar. Earlier this month, the high court in Peshawar ordered spy agencies, police and the provincial government to provide details on the status of 170 people. Mohammad Iqbal Mohmand, provincial deputy attorney general, told AFP that the court is hearing cases from 170 petitioners who want their relatives back and accuse the intelligence agencies of holding them illegally. The court will next hear the case on July 11. Pakistan's Supreme Court is also investigating the cases of missing people in the northwest and southwestern Baluchistan province, where the military has been accused of rights violations in its bid to put down a separatist insurgency. In February, seven men allegedly held by intelligence services appeared before the Supreme Court, more than a year and a half after being allegedly arrested in connection with terror attacks. It was an unprecedented development that challenged perceptions that Pakistan's feared Inter-Services Intelligence operates above the law.