PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Feb. 28 (UPI) -- An unknown number of gunmen attacked passengers in a bus Tuesday in northeast Pakistan, killing at least 18, police said.
The shootings occurred in mountainous Kohistan, a relatively peaceful district in the violence-hit Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province. The bus was traveling from Rawalpindi to Gilgit city, CNN reported quoting a police official.
Eight more people were injured in the attack, police said.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the shootings.
China's Xinhua news agency, quoting state-run television, said the gunmen, clad in army uniforms, stopped the bus on the Karakoram highway in Kohistan district, ordered all passengers to get out and began shooting indiscriminately.
It was not known how many passengers were aboard the bus or whether any of them managed to escape.
Among those injured, seven were critically wounded, Xinhua reported.
The Tuesday attack came a day after an explosion outside a political rally also in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, in which five people died and 10 more were wounded, officials said.
The Pakistani Taliban, which is separate from the Afghan Taliban, claimed responsibility for the explosion, CNN reported. A spokesman was quoted as saying the attack targeted the secular Awami National Party.
"We will also target any other rallies conducted by secular political parties in the future," the spokesman said.
The ANP is a member of the ruling coalition of Pakistan led by President Asif Ali Zardari's Pakistan Peoples Party.
