Pakistan market bomb kills 20, 40 injured

Peshawar : A bomb exploded at a market on Saturday in a mainly Shiite area of Pakistan's northwestern tribal belt, killing at least 20 people and wounding 40 others, officials said.

The bomb detonated in a crowded vegetable market in Parachinar city, the capital of Kurram tribal district on the Afghan border.

"20 people have been martyred [killed]," the Pakistan military said in a short statement, adding that the injured had been taken to military and civil hospitals in the region's main city of Peshawar. 

"Troops from army and (paramilitary) Frontier Corps are under taking relief and rescue operations," it said.

Iqbal Zafar Jhagra, governor for Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province confirmed the death toll in a televised interview with Pakistan's private news broadcaster Geo.

Jhagra said at least 40 people were wounded in the blast, 12 critically.

Video footage from the site showed chaotic scenes with people running and shouting in panic and victims strewn in front of vegetables shops among smashed crates and pushcarts.

Victims could be heard screaming and crying while ambulances arrived at the site with sirens blaring.

Ikramullah Khan, a senior government official in Parachinar, told AFP that the blast was caused by an IED (improvised explosive device) hidden in a vegetable box.

In a telephone call to AFP, the Hakimullah Mehsud faction of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), claimed responsibility for the attack.