PESHAWAR, Pakistan, (Reuters) – A suicide bomber  killed an anti-Taliban village mayor and 11 other people in an  attack near Pakistan’s volatile city of Peshawar yesterday,  officials said.

The bomber blew himself up as Abdul Malik, mayor of Matni  village, was visiting a market crowded with people and goats  being sold for the upcoming Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha.

Muslims slaughter goats, cows, buffaloes and camels on Eid  al-Adha, which will be celebrated later this month.

“Twelve people have been killed, including a four-year-old  child, and 36 people are wounded,” Mohammad Mukhtar, a doctor  at Peshawar’s main government hospital, told Reuters. Matni is  close to the lawless tribal lands where Islamist militants are  active.
Islamist militants have unleashed a campaign of bomb and  suicide attacks in Pakistan in recent weeks in retaliation for  a major offensive launched by security forces in their main  bastion, South Waziristan, on the Afghan border.

The army yesterday said 20 militants were killed in the  latest fighting there, taking their total death toll to 478  since the offensive began.

Forty-four soldiers have been killed in the same period,  according to military figures. There was no independent  verification of casualties as reporters and other independent  observers are not allowed into the war zone.