Suicide attack kills 10 at police checkpoint near Peshawar

Peshawar: A suicide car bomber killed 10 people, including four children, on Saturday at a police checkpoint on the outskirts of the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, in the latest in a string of militant attacks targeting the city, officials said.

Attacks on security forces, civilians and Western targets have surged since the government launched an offensive in mid-October against militants in the border region of South Waziristan, where Al Qaida and Taliban leaders are believed to be hiding out.

The city has been a main focus of the attacks, which in the last week alone have killed over 50 people, including 17 at the regional offices of Pakistan's top intelligence agency, which was targeted by a massive truck bombing on Friday.

The agency, Inter Services Intelligence, has been overseeing much of the country's anti-terror campaign.

The death toll from a powerful suicide car bomb which ripped through the Peshawar headquarters of Pakistan's top spy agency rose to 17 on Saturday, officials said.

The early Friday attack devastated the provincial headquarters in the city of Peshawar of the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), which is heavily involved in Pakistan's anti-terror fight, destroying more than half the building.

Death toll

"The death toll has risen to 17. Four bodies were recovered from the rubble and three other officials died at the hospital overnight," a senior security official said.

"Fourteen officials and three civilians are among the dead," he said, and added that two injured were pulled out from under the rubble after some 12 hours.

"There are 39 injured officials getting medical care at the hospital," another security official said, adding the rubble of the building had been removed and all official documents and other material had been salvaged.

Closed circuit television footage showed that more than one attacker, driving a mini-truck loaded with explosives, raced down the road towards the ISI building shortly before sunrise, the official said.

A security guard was run over by the truck amid gunfire by more than one attacker, before the attackers blew up the vehicle, he added.

Peshawar, on the edge of Pakistan's tribal belt that is infested with Al Qaida and Taliban fighters, has increasingly become the favoured target for attacks by militants, particularly since the army launched its offensive in October.

A second suicide bomber rammed a car packed with explosives into a suburban police station in the garrison town of Bannu, southwest of Peshawar, killing seven security personnel and a prisoner on Friday, police said.

Security was tightened in and around the city after Friday's attack. Police were manning checkpoints at all entry points to the city and were checking every vehicle, said a local government official, Sahibzada Mohammad Anis.

Big bang

"Suddenly, a car exploded with a big bang," said police official Malik Jehangir, who was working at the checkpoint. "There was a long queue of the vehicles. One of our officials wanted to search the car when it exploded."

Jehangir said 10 people were killed, including two police officials. Four children and a woman were among the dead civilians, he added.

Taliban and Al Qaida fighters are waging a war against the Pakistani government because they deem it un-Islamic and are angry about its alliance with the United States.

The insurgency began in earnest in 2007, and attacks have spiked since preparations for the offensive in South Waziristan began.

The government has vowed that the militant attacks will not dent its resolve to continue the operation in the region, where officials say the most deadly insurgent network in Pakistan is based. The army claims it is making good progress.