WANA, Aug 5: Investigators on Saturday termed the Friday’s blast in Shakai in the South Waziristan Agency a suicide attack.

Pakistan army spokesman Maj-Gen Shaukat Sultan said that the blast was a suicide attack that targeted troops camping in a private rest-house.

Officials of local administration said that said that the suicide bomber rammed his explosive-laden car into the rest-house, blowing up the 18-foot-high and six-foot-wide wall of the building. Five soldiers were wounded and at least 16 vehicles were damaged. The rest-house belonged to a slain tribal chieftain, senator Malik Faridullah Khan.

They said that the investigators had later collected body parts of the suicide bomber.

Meanwhile, a caller purporting to be a spokesman for the defunct Taliban, said that simlar attacks would be carried out “until the army withdrew from populated areas and remained confined to their bases”.

The man, speaking in broken Darri and Pushto with a foreign accent, said that the “Taliban would continue suicide attacks against army was not withdrawn”.