12 killed in explosion in NW Pakistan's Peshawar

    ISLAMABAD, Oct. 16, 2009, (Xinhua) --

At least 12 people were killed and 15 others injured in an explosion in northwest Pakistan's Peshawar on Friday, according to local TV channel reports.

    A bomber rammed an explosive-laden car into a Central Investigation Agency police station at Saddar area of Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier Province (NWFP), leaving at least 12 people including a woman and a child dead, according to reports.

    A nearby Mosque, the police station and several vehicles were damaged in the blast. More people are feared to be trapped under the debris of the collapsed building.

    Forty kilograms of explosives may have been used in the blast, officials said.

    Rescue team rushed to the blast site and local police cordoned off the area. The injured, including many prisoners have been rushed to nearby hospital, according to Inspector General Police Naveed Malik.

    The police station was used for interrogation of the terror suspects.

    Helicopters are hovering over the affected area.

    Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani strongly condemned the terror attack in Peshawar.

Pakistani police arrest dozens of suspects after attacks

    ISLAMABAD, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) --

Dozens of suspected militants have been arrested during operations of police in main Pakistani cities, according to local TV channel reports Friday.

    Officials said that 38 alleged offenders have been arrested and large cache of weapons, police uniforms and walky talky recovered during a raid of police in Sharafi Goth area of Karachi, southern Pakistan 's port city.

    Police said that most of the arrested offenders belonged to North West Frontier Province.

    Meanwhile, police in eastern Pakistan's Punjab province arrested four alleged terrorists by conducting raids following attacks on offices of law enforcing agencies in Lahore, the capital of Punjab.

Double bombing kills 11 at Pakistan police station

Oct 16, 2009, 8:41 AM EDT

By RIAZ KHAN Associated Press Writer

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) --

Three suicide attackers, including a woman, attacked a police station in northwestern Pakistan, killing 11 people Friday while army airstrikes killed a dozen alleged Taliban fighters in a Taliban stronghold ahead of an expected ground offensive.

The bombing in Peshawar city was the latest in a surge of attacks over the last 11 days that has killed more than 150 people and underscored the power of the Taliban, who have warned the army against launching any operation in their base close to the Afghan border.

The attack targeted a heavily fortified police station in Peshawar, the main city in the northwest.

One attacker drove a car filled with explosives to the main gate of the police station, as a motorcycle carrying a man and a woman pulled up behind it, Peshawar police chief Liaquat Ali Khan said.

The woman jumped off and ran toward a nearby housing complex where army officers live, while the man smashed the motorcycle into the car, which exploded into a huge fireball, he said. Police shot at the woman, who detonated explosives she was wearing.

The blast destroyed part of the police station and a mosque next to it.

"If that woman suicide bomber had not been killed, she might have caused more damage," Khan said.

The blast killed 11 people, including three police officers, two women and two children, Khan said. Another 15 people were wounded, including a criminal suspect who was detained inside the police station at the time of the attack, officials said.

Insurgents have sent attackers wearing military uniforms to bypass security to carry out some of their recent raids. But the use of a female suicide bomber is extremely rare here and could signal a new tactic by the extremists.

In December 2007, what was believed to be the country's first female bomber blew herself up near a Christian school while apparently aiming for a military post in Peshawar. There were no other casualties.

The attack came a day after militants launched coordinated attacks on three law enforcement compounds in the country's second-largest city of Lahore, killing 19 people as well as the nine attackers. Also Thursday, a car bomb in Peshawar killed a small child at a housing complex for government employees.

Amid the violence, the country's top political and military leaders met at the prime minister's residence in Islamabad on Friday.

Initial investigations into the Lahore attacks show Taliban from the Afghan border region and militants from Punjab were responsible, authorities have said. That has fueled concerns the Taliban are forging links with other militant groups in the country, an alliance that would vastly increase the threat to the U.S.-allied government.

Observers say Punjab's militant problem is most pervasive in its south. But speaking to reporters in Lahore on Friday, provincial Law Minister Rana Sanaullah played down any such threat.

"The Taliban don't have any authority in southern Punjab, and there is no need for any operation against them," he said.

The government has said the planning for the attacks is often done near the Afghan border, while the foot soldiers are recruited in Punjab. In claiming responsibility for another recent attack, the Taliban said one of their cells in Punjab had carried it out.

The U.S. hopes that a Pakistani army operation in South Waziristan, the Taliban's main stronghold, will help break much of the militant network that threatens both Pakistan and American troops across the border in Afghanistan.

The Pakistani army has given no time frame for the expected ground offensive in South Waziristan, but it has spent months softening targets there with airstrikes.

Jets struck six Taliban positions in the region Friday, killing 12 Taliban fighters and wounding eight, a government and an intelligence official said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media.

The two officials said they received the reports from agents in the field.

The army has reportedly already sent two divisions totaling 28,000 men and blockaded the area. Analysts say that with winter approaching, any push would likely have to begin soon to be successful.

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Associated Press writers Ashraf Khan in Karachi and Babar Dogar in Lahore contributed to this report.