killed as twin blasts rock Pakistan
Islamabad, June 30: An explosion destroyed the home of a militant in Pakistan's Khyber region on Monday, killing eight people, but the cause of the blast was not clear, residents said. Pakistani security forces launched an offensive in Khyber, in the country's northwest, on Saturday to push back militants who have been threatening the city of Peshawar. "The house belonged to a member of the Haji Namdar group and seven people were killed," said Sher Khan, a resident of the town of Bara where the blast took place. Haji Namdar leads a militant faction in Khyber, a mountainous region inhabited by ethnic Pashtun tribes between Peshawar and the Afghan border and home to the Khyber Pass, through which supplies for Western forces in Afghanistan pass. Namdar told Dawn Television the blast might have been caused by a missile. Bara is about 15 km (10 miles) southwest of Peshawar and about 40 km (25 miles) from the Afghan border. "I don't know who did it. We don't have any conflict in our tribe. We are enemies of those who are enemies of Islam," he said. The offensive in Khyber is the first major military action a new government has launched since it took power after February elections, and comes after growing alarm about the spread of militants in the northwest.