Top Pakistani policeman, four guards killed in ambush

GILGIT, Pakistan,Thursday (AFP) A top Pakistan police official and his four guards were killed Wednesday in an ambush by gunmen who also wounded his son and daughter-in-law in the northern district of Gilgit, officials said.

The unidentified gunmen attacked Sakhiullah Tareen while he was driving to the Gilgit town, which is plagued by violence between the Shiite and Sunni Muslim groups, an interior ministry official said. The guards were in a separate vehicle which overturned after the driver was hit in the hail of bullets. The vehicle fell into a ditch, local officials said. It was not clear if the guards were shot or died in the crash. Tareen died in a Gilgit hospital where doctors were trying to save his son and daughter-in-law, the official said.

"It is a terrorist attack," Minister for Northern Areas Minister Faisal Hayat told AFP in Islamabad. He said security reinforcements were being sent to Gilgit, which is the main town in Pakistan's northern region.