SWAT: A bomb killed the former head of a pro-government militia and seven others in northwestern Pakistan, officials said Wednesday, in an attack claimed by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan.

The blast happened Tuesday night in Kabal town in the Swat valley, which was largely ruled by the Pakistan Taliban during a 2007-2009 insurgency.

Idris Khan, a member of the District Peace Committee and a former head of the Aman Committee, was travelling towards Bara Bandai village in the Swat valley when the vehicle was targetted in the Ghlo Kandaw area of Kabal tehsil.

For years Islamabad encouraged tribal vigilante forces known as peace committees to defend their villages against militants.

Most have been disbanded since the insurgency was largely crushed and security improved across the country.

Swat district police officer Zahid Nawaz Marwat said that the former peace committee head was killed when his pick-up truck was hit by a roadside bomb. Another local police official confirmed the death toll, which included two local policemen, two private guards and three labourers.

The attack was claimed by the outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), who said Khan was involved in the killing their members.

The group also claimed responsibility for a clash with Pakistani military in which three soldiers were killed Tuesday in Kurram district, bordering Afghanistan.

The TTP declared an indefinite ceasefire in June to facilitate peace talks being brokered by Afghanistan, but there have been regular clashes since then despite both sides saying the truce was still on.

Since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan last year Islamabad has regularly complained of attacks by the TTP, especially along their porous frontier.

The Pakistan and Afghanistan Taliban are separate groups, but share a common ideology.

There has been an uptick in the militancy and extortion cases in Pakistan’s northern regions, particularly those bordering Afghanistan.

Abduction

Militants have released five of the seven employees of an international mobile service company who were reported missing. At least two engineers are still in the custody of the kidnappers, sources informed Aaj News.

Extortion

A PML-N MPA from Swat has submitted an application with the area police, saying that he received a call from a man claiming to be from the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) who demanded ‘protection’ money.

Sardar Khan, a Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) MPA from Swat, received a call from the militants and was threatened to pay extortion or face serious consequences.

A case has been registered against the militants.

On August 6, four persons were killed when unidentified suspects opened fire on Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) MPA Malik Liaquat Ali’s vehicle in the Lower Dir district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa late at night.

PTI parliamentarian while travelling to his native area in Tehsil Maidan of Lower Dir District was also wounded in a brazen gun attack that killed four persons including Ali’s brother, Jehan Alam and nephew Yasir.