LANDI KOTAL: Two FC personnel were killed and seven others injured in a roadside blast near Sadokhel area of Khyber tribal region on Monday.

Officials said the FC men were going from Landi Kotal to Jamrud in a vehicle when the blast occurred on the under-construction Peshawar-Torkham highway at around 7.30am.

They said the remote-controlled explosive device went off when the FC vehicle was passing through the area.

The dead were identified as Lance Naik Salahuddin Mehsud and Sepoy Javed.

The injured troops — Sher Azam, Ejaz, Saifur Rehman, Muhib, Sanaullah, Israj and Naveed — were taken to the Combined Military Hospital.

Security personnel cordoned off the area after the incident and conducted a search operation. They took into custody 37 suspects under the collective territorial responsibility clause of the Frontier Crimes Regulations.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack, but officials believe it could be retaliation for Sunday’s air strikes by government forces on the base of Mullah Tamanche in Bara whose group is accused of killing 12 tribal policemen and a school student during a polio vaccination campaign in Jamrud tehsil on Saturday.