MIRAMSHAH, July 4: A man, suspected to be a suicide bomber, rammed an explosives-laden car into a military convoy near a seminary in Bannu’s Gurbaz area on Wednesday, killing 10 people, six soldiers and four civilians. Nine others, seven of them security personnel, suffered injuries, officials and residents said.

Officials said the convoy of eight vehicles was going from Miramshah, the North Waziristan Agency’s headquarters, to its garrison when it was struck by the car coming from the opposite direction on the main Bannu-Miramshah Road.

The six soldiers died on the spot and the seven injured were said to be in a critical condition.

Four boys who had been playing cricket along the road were killed and two others were injured.

It may be mentioned that a local militant commander Maulvi Abdul Khaliq Haqqani had recently warned of a “fitting response” to the June 19 missile attack on a suspected militant location in Datakhel near the Afghan border. At least 34 people were killed in the attack.

The soldiers killed in Wednesday’s attack were identified as Mahdi, Shah Kiaz, Mirza, Wazir, Shahbaz and Shafiq, and the wounded included Irfan, Naveed, Nasir, Ihsan, Khalid, Arshad and Zulfiqar.

Security forces closed the road for traffic and cordoned off the area for more than two hours.