It seems the voices of prominent Taliban leaders calling on Islamic militants to halt attacks weren’t loud enough. A car bomb explosion killed three people in northwestern Pakistan on Friday.

The attack claimed by the Pakistani Taliban militants comes on the background of recent efforts made by the newly sworn in coalition government to reach peace with the militant groups activating in Pakistan.

The bomb was detonated in the city of Mardan at 6 a.m. local time. The powerful explosion was carried out between a police station and a market area, police official Akhbar Ali Shah told The Associated Press.

The victims: a police officer, the owner of a nearby restaurant and one of his employees.
The blast also wounded 26 people. Eighteen of them were policemen, said city police official
Javed Khan.

The bomb attack comes after more that a month of peace in Pakistan. During this month, the newly elected government vowed to scale back military operations against militants and try to negotiate with them. The last similar attack happened in the South Waziristan region on March 20 and killed 5 soldiers.

Islamic militants carried out the attack despite the orders given by senior Pakistani Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud to militants to restrain from violent acts in the region.
Ironically, the attack coincided with news that the government was actually close to reaching a peace agreement with the militant groups.

Zahid Khan, senior official in the Awami National Party, confirmed the fact that the negotiations between the government and the Mehsud tribe, to which Baitullah Mehsud belongs, are under way, the VOA reported.