Khar, Nov 7: Around 22 tribesmen were killed and 45 injured when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a Salarzai jirga in the Bajaur Agency last evening.

A man claiming to be a member of a not-s-well-known organization ‘Karwan-e-Nematullah’ accepted responsibility for the attack by calling up journalists on phone.

The blast targeted a lashkar in Batmalani, about 40 km northeast of the Bajaur Agency headquarters Khar. “Two to three hundred members of the lashkar were finalising their strategy after demolishing houses of Taliban when the blast occurred,” the Daily Times quoted local police official Fazal-e-Rabi as saying.

Malik Rahimullah, a tribal elder, said the explosion occurred as soon as armed contingents began to move.

Among the dead were lashkar head Malak Fazal Karim and his aides Malak Wazir Khan and Malak Sakhi.

Hospital officials said the death toll was likely to rise because several of the injured were in critical condition. (ANI)