Suicide attack kills Pakistani general

Rawalpindi: A suicide car bomber killed the Pakistan army's top medical officer and at least three other people on Monday in a brazen attack in the country's main garrison city, officials said.

Lieutenant General Mushtaq Baig, head of the army's medical corps, died after the attacker rammed an explosives-laden car into military vehicles in the centre of Rawalpindi, they said.

"We confirm that Lt. Gen. Mushtaq Baig, his guard and driver were killed in an apparent suicide blast. We don't know the civilian casualties," a military official said.

It was the first time a general has been killed since a wave of militant violence swept the country after Pakistani forces raided the extremist Red Mosque in Islamabad in July 2007.

The general's black car was destroyed in the attack, and several passenger vehicles were also damaged. The site was cordoned off as experts collected evidence.

Earlier, President Pervez Musharraf's spokesman rejected fresh pressure at home and abroad for the key US ally to step down after his loyalists were trounced in parliamentary elections.

A US senator who monitored the polls said Musharraf should be given a "graceful way to move", while arch-foe and former premier Nawaz Sharif said the sooner the president stepped down, the better.

Musharraf's spokesman, Major General Rashid Qureshi, said the president had been elected for a five-year period last year and that his position should not be determined by the results of the parliamentary elections.

"Except for Nawaz Sharif it is clear that no one else is talking about the president leaving," Qureshi told Dawn News Television.