U.N. children to leave Pakistan, suicide attack kills 3

By Augustine Anthony ISLAMABAD, Oct 2 (*******) - The United Nations has ordered children of its international staff to leave Pakistan after raising its security level following a suicide attack on the Marriott hotel in the capital, a U.N. official said on Thursday.

The security alert came as a suicide bomber killed himself and three other people in northwest Pakistan in an attack aimed at a prominent ethnic Pashtun politician, police said.

The politician, Asfandyar Wali Khan, leader of the Awami National Party (ANP) which is part of the ruling coalition government, was not hurt in the attack in the northwestern town of Charsadda, police said.

The blast, the latest in a wave of bomb attacks by Islamist militants, came as the United Nations said it was raising its security level in Pakistan and children of international staff would have to leave the country.
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