PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A suicide bomber driving a motorcycle hit a roadside checkpoint on a major highway in northwest Pakistan on Tuesday, killing 10 people and injuring 42 others, according to local officials.
A child was among those who died when the attacker riding "an explosives-laden motorcycle" struck the checkpoint on the Torkham-Jalalabad Highway linking Pakistan to Afghanistan,said Saiful Islam, a senior official in the semi-autonomous tribal government of the region.
Islam said a local security official, Nawab Shah, who was passing through the area some three miles from the provincial capital city of Peshawar, appeared to have been the target.
The highway was closed after the 9 a.m. (11 p.m. ET Monday) bombing, blocking trucks carrying supplies to NATO forces in neighboring Afghanistan.
A prominent local journalist, Mehboob Shah Afridi, was among those killed, according to Islam. Several vehicles and nearby shops were also damaged in the blast, Islam added.
"We received eight bodies, including that of a child and 42 injured. Some of the injured are in critical condition and the death toll may rise," said Tauheed Begam, a spokeswoman for Peshawar's Hayatabad Medical Complex.
In a call to media, a spokesman for a splinter group of Pakistani Taliban, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan Jamaatul Ahrar (TTP-JA), claimed responsibility for the attack.
