Death toll from overnight bombing in Pakan rises to 8

Eight people have been killed in a roadside bombing that targeted an anti-Taliban village elder’s vehicle in northwestern Pakan, police said.
Saeed Khan, a senior police official in Swat, said the slain head of a village peace committee, Idrees Khan, was traveling in the area when the roadside bomb hit his vehicle.
He said that initial reports suggested the bombing killed five but later they concluded eight people had died, including two policemen.
In a statement, Mohammad Khurasani, the spokesman for the Pakani Taliban militant group — known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakan — claimed responsibility.
He said that the slain head of the peace committee had been supporting security forces for the past several years.
The Pakani Taliban have been holding peace talks since May in Kabul, Afghanan.
But isolated militant attacks and security raids on militant hideouts have continued, raising fears these talks could break in the coming months, if not weeks.
A formal cease-fire between Pakan and the TTP is still in place.The talks in Kabul are hosted the Afghan Taliban, a separate group allied with the Pakani Taliban.
The Taliban seized power in Afghanan a year ago. That takeover has emboldened the Pakani Taliban, whose fighters and leaders, officials say, have been hiding in Afghanan.
Islamabad has demanded that the new Taliban rulers in Afghanan prevent militant groups, including TTP, from using Afghan territory for attacks inside Pakan.
Before the Taliban takeover next door, Islamabad and Kabul had often traded blame and accused each other of sheltering militants.