March 15, 2012 - 14:53 AMT
Pakistani police chief killed in suicide bomber attack

A suicide bomber on Thursday, March 15 assassinated a prominent Pakistani police commander who took a leading role in anti-Taliban operations in the country's troubled northwest, police said, according to AFP.

Superintendent Kalam Khan was killed when the bomber detonated alongside his car as he drove to work in a suburb of the northwestern city of Peshawar, which has been hit by a new wave of Islamist militant violence.

Khan, 58, had taken part in a number of anti-Taliban operations and survived at least three previous assassination attempts by bombers and gunmen since being posted to Peshawar in 2009.

He was killed as his driver slowed down to navigate a road under construction in Peshawar's Pishta Khara neighbourhood en route to work in the suburban town of Badaber, where a suicide attack killed 15 people on Sunday.

It lies close to Bara town, a stronghold of local warlord Mangal Bagh, who is linked to Islamist militants.

Peshawar has a population of 2.5 million people and has long been on the frontline of violence blamed on an insurgency led by Taliban militants opposed to Islamabad's alliance with the United States.

Islamist militants have killed more than 4,900 people across Pakistan since government troops raided an extremist mosque in Islamabad in July 2007.