Grenade attack kills policeman in NW Pakistan

Islamabad: A policeman was killed and two others wounded in a grenade attack in Pakistan`s restive northwest on Tuesday, police said.

The incident happened in the Shabqadar area of Charsadda district, 30 kilometres (18 miles) north of Peshawar, the capital of the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

"Two men riding a motorbike threw a hand grenade on a police vehicle patrolling the area, killing one policeman and wounding two others, one of them seriously," district police chief Shafiullah Khan told AFP.

Another local police official Asghar Khan also confirmed the incident and casualties.

Spokesman of the Jamatul Ahrar faction of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, Ehsanullah Ehsan claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement issued to local media in Peshawar.

Pakistan has been battling Islamist groups in the northwest and its semi-autonomous tribal belt since 2004, after its army entered the tribal region to search for al Qaeda fighters who had fled across the border following the US-led invasion of Afghanistan.

In June the army began a major offensive against militant hideouts in the North Waziristan tribal agency, a major base for the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, after a bloody raid on Karachi Airport ended faltering peace talks between the government and the Taliban.