Islamabad/Kabul: A car bomb killed 100 people in a crowded market in Peshawar, Pakistan, as Taliban gunmen struck a UN hostel in Afghanistan yesterday.
The attacks hit the neighbouring countries as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Pakistan, and days before President Barack Obama was to decide whether to hurl thousands more troops into an increasingly deadly theatre in Afghanistan.
More than 150kg of explosives was used in the blast that ripped through a crowded market in Peshawar, killing many women and children, a bomb disposal squad official said.
"Around 95 people are dead and up to 200 have been injured," provincial information minister Iftikhar Hussain said earlier.
Clinton said that Washington stands "shoulder to shoulder" with Pakistan's people. "I want you to know that this fight is not Pakistan's alone," she said.
In Kabul, Taliban suicide attackers stormed a guesthouse and killed 12 people, including six foreign UN staff, an attack the Islamists said signalled a bloody countdown to new Afghan presidential elections next week.
The two-hour attack on the guest house where some 20 UN election workers were staying sent people running and screaming outside.
US vows support for terror fight
The United States pledged support for Pakistan's campaign against militants as a car bomb struck a crowded market in Peshawar yesterday.
The bomb destroyed much of Meena Bazaar in Peshawar's old town, a labyrinth of narrow alleys with shops selling dresses, toys and cheap ornaments that drew many female shoppers and children in the city.
The blast collapsed buildings, including a mosque, and set shops ablaze. The wounded sat amid burning debris and parts of bodies as a huge plume of grey smoke rose above the city. Crying for help, men tried to pull survivors from beneath wreckage.
One man carried away a baby with its face full of flood and a group of men rescued a young boy covered in dust, but others found only bodies of the dead. A two-storey building collapsed as firefighters doused it with water, triggering more panic.
Eyewitness
"There was a deafening sound and I was like a blind man for a few minutes," Mohammad Usman, who was wounded in the shoulder, said. "I heard women and children crying and started to help others. There was the smell of human flesh in the air."
Hillary Clinton, on her first visit to Pakistan as Secretary of State, was a three-hour drive away in the capital, Islamabad, when the blast took place.
Clinton advised those indulging in violence to project their beliefs and ideas by joining politics and the democratic process and let the people decide. They should "make their case in the political arena," she said.
Clinton reiterated US support to Pakistan in the fight against extremism and terrorism.
Praising the Pakistani armed forces campaign against the menace, she assured that the US "will give you the help you need to achieve your goal".
"Terrorists are good at destroying but they cannot build," Clinton said, adding that the Pakistan and the US would work closely together to build an enduring, responsive democracy in Pakistan.
Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmoud Qureshi said Pakistan had been facing such violence on almost daily basis and the aim of the perpetrators was to shake its resolve to wipe out terrorism.
‘We will not buckle'
"They want to shake our resolve. We will not buckle. We will face you because we want peace and stability in Pakistan.
"We defeated you in Swat and our valiant armed forces will also defeat you in Waziristan," Qureshi said.
Pakistan army has closed in on an important base of Uzbek fighters among Taliban militants in South Waziristan tribal region, according to a military statement yesterday. The base at Kaniguram is considered a stronghold of terrorists.
On Day 12 of the military operation into the bastion of banned Tehrik Taliban Pakistan, military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said 25 more terrorists have been killed in battles.
Before the start of the operation on October 17, the number of foreign militants, mostly Uzbeks, in South Waziristan was estimated by the military at about 1,000 and the overall number of militants at around 10,000.
