Deadly Pakistan bombing targets polio workers

A bomb rigged to a bicycle hit a police patrol on its way to guard a polio vaccination team in northwestern Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Wednesday, killing six policemen and a boy, police officials said.

The attack in the Charsadda district also wounded 11 people, four of them policemen, said Officer Shafiullah Khan. The bomb, set off by remote control, struck close to a busy town market, he said. The boy who was killed along with the policemen in the patrol was just a bystander, Khan added. 

The vaccination campaign was suspended after the attack, and heavy contingents of police were deployed.

The bombing comes a day after three health workers were killed in an attack on a polio vaccination team in the southern port city of Karachi.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the latest attacks, but the Pakistani Taliban have killed thousands of civilians, policemen, soldiers and officials in recent years while campaigning to overthrow the government and install their brand of Sharia rule. 

The group opposes vaccinations against polio and considers such campaigns a cover for spying against Pakistan and a conspiracy to make Muslim boys sterile.

The incidents are the latest in a surge of violence stretching across Pakistan that has killed more than 100 people this month and left many questioning whether the government has a plan to tackle the country's militancy problem. 

Wednesday's attack followed a particularly deadly day in Pakistan. A car bomb struck a bus carrying Shia pilgrims in a southwestern region on Tuesday, killing 20 people, including women and children.

The Taliban targeted the military in attacks on Sunday and Monday, killing 34 soldiers and seven civilians in the northwestern city of Bannu and the garrison city of Rawalpindi near the capital, Islamabad, where a suicide bomber blew himself up near the country's main military headquarters.

Polio vaccination teams have also come under relentless attacks. Pakistan is one of only three countries where the polio virus is still endemic, and militants have killed more than 30 polio workers and troops protecting them in recent years.

Pakistan recorded 91 cases of polio last year, compared with 58 in 2012, according to the World Health Organization. Last week the country's neighbor and rival India celebrated three years since its last polio case.

The vaccination campaign is viewed with suspicion by many in Pakistan after a fake vaccination effort was used as a cover by the CIA in its pursuit of Osama bin Laden.

Wire services