Blast kills 15 police recruits in Pakistan's Swat

Source Associated Press

A suicide bomber killed at least 15 police recruits Sunday in Pakistan's Swat Valley in the deadliest attack since the army regained control over the northwestern valley from the Taliban, officials said. Authorities were investigating reports that the attacker–possibly in uniform–may have hidden among the dozens of recruits, two officials said. The blast in the yard of the police station in Mingora, Swat's main town, came one day after the army said it had destroyed a major training camp for suicide bombers. It indicated that while the Taliban's hard-line Islamist rule may be over in the valley, life is far from normal even as hundreds of thousands of residents who fled the fighting are returning. Volunteers for a new community police force were holding their daily drills in the yard adjacent to the station when the attacker detonated his explosives, local government administrator Atifur Rehman told The Associated Press.