Pakistan reels from suicide attacks

Islamabad: At least 35 people were killed and more than 60 injured when a suspected Taliban suicide bomber detonated explosives outside a bank in the cantonment area of Pakistan's garrison city of Rawalpindi on Monday, officials said.

The bomber rode up to the National Bank on a motorcycle and blew himself up, said Rawalpindi police chief Rao Mohammad Iqbal. The explosion damaged windows of the bank building and blackened its walls.

The bank is located near the defence ministry and the army headquarters and defence employees usually visit the bank in large numbers to draw money at the start of every month.

In Lahore, two suicide bombers blew themselves up at a police checkpoint late in the evening, wounding seven people, a senior police official said. The bombers struck near bus terminals on a link road to the intercity motorway.

$5m bounty

The blasts came as the government announced rewards of up to $5 million for information leading to the capture, dead or alive, of Pakistan Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud and more than a dozen other leaders.

In a related development, the United Nations announced it had raised a security alert for the Northwest Frontier Province and Federally Administered Tribal Areas — which include Waziristan — ordering all non-essential staff to leave.