Policeman killed defusing bomb in Pakistan: police

A policeman was killed on Tuesday in troubled northwest Pakistan while trying to defuse a remote controlled bomb planted in a busy market.

A policeman was killed on Tuesday in troubled northwest Pakistan while trying to defuse a remote controlled bomb planted in a busy market, police said.

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The incident took place in the garrison town of Bannu, near the border with North Waziristan, one of Pakistan's lawless tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, where Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants are active.

Shoppers had alerted police to the bomb in the Pippal bazaar, local police chief Mohammad Alim Shinwari told AFP.

The policeman was killed when the bomb exploded in his hands, he said.

Northwest Pakistan has been wracked by violence since hundreds of Taliban and Al-Qaeda rebels fled there after the US led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, which forced the hardline Taliban regime from power in Kabul.