Blast kills at least 13, injures 70 others in Pakistani city of Lahore

An explosion has rocked the Pakistani city of Lahore, claiming the lives of at least 13 people and wounding dozens more, hospital and local media sources say.

Pakistan's English-language newspaper Dawn said the powerful blast had ripped through a protest rally organized by Pakistani chemists and pharmaceuticals manufacturers near the provincial assembly in the eastern city of Lahore on Monday.

The explosion occurred when a man on a motorcycle rammed into the crowd of hundreds of pharmacists, who were protesting new amendments to a law governing drug sales, according to local police official Zaheer Abbas.

Abbas noted that two senior police officers, including a former provincial counter-terrorism chief, had been among those killed.

A hospital source in Lahore said that at least 70 others had been injured in the attack.

The Jamaat-ur-Ahrar faction of the Pakistani Taliban has claimed responsibility for the bombing.

Reacting to the deadly explosion, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said in a statement that the attacks would not undermine the country’s resolve in its fight against militancy.

"We have fought this fight against the terrorists among us, and will continue to fight it until we liberate our people of this cancer, and avenge those who have laid down their lives for us," Sharif said.

Security forces and civilians have been a constant target of the pro-Taliban militants who are operating against the government in Islamabad.

Bomb attack in South Waziristan

In a separate attack a day earlier, officials said that a roadside bombing had killed three Pakistani paramilitary soldiers in a restive district in the country’s northwestern tribal region near the border with Afghanistan.

A senior security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the assault took place on Sunday as the three were on patrol on a motorbike in Toikhola village in South Waziristan tribal district, adding that an improvised explosive device (IED) had been detonated remotely.

"Three FC (Frontier Corps) soldiers were martyred in a bomb blast during a patrol in South Waziristan," the security official told AFP.

Pakistan’s military, confirming the fatalities, said the attack had occurred when the Pakistani army chief of staff, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, was paying a visit to the district.

A pro-Taliban militant group, known as Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), claimed responsibility for the deadly attack.

Pakistan’s northwest tribal belt has witnessed violence following the 2001 US-led invasion of neighboring Afghanistan.

South Waziristan is one of Pakistan’s seven semi-autonomous tribal districts, where militant groups have been hiding.

Islamabad has been battling militancy for more than a decade.

The Pakistani military launched a major offensive against pro-Taliban militants and other militant strongholds in the neighboring North Waziristan tribal area in June 2014. The move followed a deadly raid on Pakistan’s major airport in the south, Jinnah International Airport in Karachi, on June 8. More than two dozen people died in the militant attack.

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