Bomb blast near police patrol kills five people in Pakistan

Peshawar: A bomb blast near a police patrol killed at least five people and injured 21 others in Pakistan's restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Friday in the latest attack on security personnel in the country.

The bomb exploded close to the police patrol in Dera Ismail Khan city, the Dawn newspaper quoted police official Mohammad Adnan as saying.

Rescue official Aizaz Mehmood said five people were killed and another 21 suffered wounds.

It is not known if any of the police personnel were among the victims.

Pakistan has witnessed an uptick in terror activities in recent months, especially in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan after the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan ended its ceasefire with the government in November last year.

On October 31, a policeman was killed after unknown militants opened fire on a police camp in Dera Ismail Khan. The same day, two soldiers were killed in an IED blast in the South Waziristan district.

In July, as many as 12 soldiers of the Pakistan Army were killed in separate military operations in the Zhob and Sui areas of Balochistan.