KOHAT A suicide bomber who appeared to be about 16 years old died when a grenade he was holding exploded because of police firing on Friday evening. His suicide vest also exploded.
The boy had barged into a house after having been spotted by police near the Qaumi Imambargah. He held the inmates of the house hostage as police sealed off the entire area. The house is located in Koocha Bibi Pak Daman.
The boy had also tried to take refuge in the Kotwali Mosque where a meeting of Sipah-i-Sahaba was under way, but he was forced to leave the mosque.
While the bomber used the family as shield to protect himself, police and intelligence officials tried to persuade him to free the hostages and surrender. But he wanted safe passage and warned of blowing himself up.
After about five hours, he freed the women when the owner of the house, Mohammad Safdar, volunteered to stay with him. According to Mr Safdar, the boy told him that he was on a 'suicide mission' and he called several people on his cellphone seeking help.
After three more hours, the boy agreed to let Mr Safdar go to the main door to speak to his sister. Reaching the main door Mr Safdar managed to run out. Police again asked the boy to surrender but when he refused police commandos were ordered to go into action.
Security forces got the nearby houses vacated, before hurling tear-gas canisters and opening fire. The operation lasted 15 minutes. The house was completely destroyed.
DSP Lal Fareed said that when he was trying to persuade the boy to surrender he told him that he wanted to attack the city's central imambargah and that he had three other 'companions' in Kohat.
He said that the boy was a Kashmiri and he had been trained by the Hakeemullah Mehsud group of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan somewhere in the lower Orakzai Agency.
