Seven people were killed and 30 wounded on Thursday in a suspected suicide blast at a meeting of ethnic Pashtun tribal leaders in northwest Pakistan's Bajaur region on the Afghan border, government officials said. Pakistani security forces are fighting Islamist al-Qaeda and Taliban militants in Bajaur and authorities are encouraging tribesmen to raise militias to force militants from the region. The bomb went off when elders of the pro-government Salarzai tribe had gathered to draw up a plan to drive militants out of their area, the officials said. "It appears to have been a suicide attack," said a senior government official in Khar, the region's main town. About 200 tribesmen had gathered for the meeting in the village of Batmalai, 20 km (12 miles) north of Khar, villagers said. It was the second such bombing at a tribal gathering in less than a month. A suicide car bomber attacked a meeting in the Orakzai region, south of Bajaur, on Oct. 10 killing more than 50 people and wounding more than 100.
