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Blast Kills 8 in Pakistan's NW Tribal Region


Officials say a bomb blast has killed at least eight people in Pakistan's northwestern tribal region.

Friday's explosion rocked a crowded bazaar in Khyber, home to a major supply route for NATO troops in neighboring Afghanistan.

Authorities say at least 14 people were wounded when the bomb exploded near a shop.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

On Thursday, a suicide bombing targeting a military convoy killed five people in northwestern Swat Valley.

Pakistan's army launched a major offensive against the Taliban in Swat last year, and later declared the region free of militants.

On Friday, Human Rights Watch urged the Pakistani government to immediately investigate reports of executions, torture and mistreatment perpetrated during counterterrorism operations in Swat.

The international rights group says it has received an initial list of 238 suspicious killings allegedly committed by security forces in the valley.

Human Rights Watch says it has corroborated about 50 of the cases, which were reported by local sources and the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

In the report released Friday, Human Rights Watch researcher Ali Dayan Hasan says killing terrorism suspects and their relatives "in cold blood is vicious, illegal and constitutes an appallingly bad counterterrorism practice that only creates more enemies."

The group referred to cases where suspected terrorists were taken into custody by military authorities and later found dead. Family members and local residents claim the suspects had nothing to do with the Taliban.

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