"One rocket fell near a police checkpost in the main bazaar of (the garrison city) Kohat while another landed harmlessly at an open place," local police chief Mubarak Zeb told reporters.
The rockets were apparently launched by militants from the nearby arms manufacturing tribal town of Darra Adam Khel, he said.
Eight people including three policemen who were manning the checkpost were wounded, he said, adding that one policeman and one civilian later died in hospital.
Another police officer Fazal Naeem confirmed the attack.
Ashura, or the 10th day of the Muslim holy month Moharram, will be observed on Tuesday to commemorate the martyrdom of Imam Hussain, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammad in 680.
Sectarian violence periodically flares in Pakistan between Shiites, who beat and whip themselves in religious fervour during Ashura, and the country`s majority Sunnis, who oppose the public display of grief.
In December 2009 a bomber detonated explosives strapped to his body as crowds marched down in Karachi, turning the Shiites` holiest day of Ashura into a bloodbath.
Shiites account for about 20 percent of Pakistan`s mostly Sunni Muslim population of 167 million. More than 4,000 people have died in outbreaks of sectarian violence in Pakistan since the late 1980s. (M014)
Editor: Kunto Wibisono
Copyright © ANTARA 2011
