PESHAWAR, March 11: Explosives packed in a water cooler went off at a mosque in the Badhber outskirts of the city luckily before the Friday prayers and so caused no casualties.

Officials said the explosion damaged the Masjid Sher Ali in Shahbkhel village but the militants caused more damage when they blew up three bridges, a girls' school and a portion of a technical college in the adjacent Khyber Agency.

They said the five kilogrammes of explosives planted in the mosque went off with a big bang at 11am, destroying the boundary wall of the mosque and creating big cracks in the concrete roof of ablution place.

A police officer said that it was a time device targeting the Friday congregation. Fortunately it exploded prematurely. He said that the militants seemed to have come from a nearby locality.

Eyewitness Naseer Amer said that he was working in the nearby fields when the blast occurred and filled the area with dust and smoke. He said that local people avoided to visit the mosque till arrival of the police.

Head of Bazidkhel Amn Lashkar Fahimur Rehman said that the mosque had been constructed a few months ago. Claiming that the militant group, Lashkar-i-Islam, was behind the blast, he said that the Amn Lashkar activists had successfully stopped movement of the militants, but non-cooperation of police forced them to abandon their efforts.

He said that police had registered several FIRs against the peace body workers and the peace Lashkar was likely to withdraw its support to police against militants. “We arrested several terrorists and handed them over to police, but they were freed,” Mr Fahim alleged and added that instead of any support the police had registered FIRs against him and his colleagues.

Our Correspondent in Landikotal reported that militants in Bara tehsil of Khyber Agency destroyed three bridges, a girls' school in Jamrud and an under-construction room of the technical college during the last 24 hours.

Sources said that two bridges were destroyed in Akkakhel area – one at Meeran Talab and another near the telephone exchange – while another bridge connecting Bara bazaar with Malikdin Khel area was blown up in Mandai Kas locality.

The powerful blasts, they said, completely destroyed all the three bridges, rendering them useless.

The militants also blew up an under-construction room of the government technical college at Dogra in Bara tehsil.

All the educational institutions in Bara are closed since the start of military operation in September 2009.

In Sheen Tang area of Jamrud tehsil, militants damaged parts of a two-room girls' school in a predawn sabotage act. It was for the first time that at a government school was targeted in Jamrud.

Meanwhile, police and Frontier Constabulary conducted a search operation in different parts of Akkakhel and arrested 19 suspected militants, including a local commander Shahbaz of a banned militant organisation.

In a separate incident, unidentified gunmen kidnapped a young man from Spin Qabar area on Friday. The abducted man was identified as Naeem son of Mohammad Yousaf.