Peshawar blasts kill, injure dozens

FRIDAY, MAY 29, 2009

by Sunita Kureishi and Biodun Iginla, BBC News

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Published: May 28, 2009 at 11:04 PM
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PESHAWAR, Pakistan, May 28 -- Terrorists struck Pakistan again Thursday, killing and injuring dozens in two attacks in Peshawar a day after their mayhem in Lahore left a far bigger toll.

The attacks Thursday in Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan's violence-ravaged Northwest Frontier Province, included a series of explosions and gun battles, authorities said.

CNN reported the blasts killed eight people. Two militants died in gun battles with police on a rooftop, the report said quoting authorities. About 70 people were injured.

In Lahore, about 300 miles southwest of Peshawar, five or six suspected Taliban militants, driving a van loaded with about 220 pounds of explosives, opened fire and lobbed grenades before detonating the explosives that destroyed the security building and damaged nearby police and national intelligence agency buildings Wednesday, media reports said.

The government-run Associated Press of Pakistan news agency reported 22 people, including 14 police officers and eight civilians, died in the Lahore attacks, which also injured 328 people, 50 of them seriously. Other reports put the toll higher.

Pakistani authorities say they suspect Taliban militants, seeking retaliation for the military's offensive in the northwest region, were responsible for the attacks in both cities.

In the Peshawar attacks, two near simultaneous explosions were set off by timer devices, each weighing about seven pounds, on two motorcycles parked in crowded shopping areas, CNN reported, quoting police and a bomb disposal squad member speaking to a local TV station. Two children were reported to be among those killed.

In another attack Thursday in Dera Ismail KhanIsmail Khan, 100 miles from Peshawar, a policeman was killed and another three injured when their patrol car was rammed by an explosives-laden vehicle, a Peshawar police official said.

CNN quoted Pakistan Taliban Commander Hakimullah Mehsud as saying the Lahore attack was in response to the military campaign against Islamic militants in the northwest. Pakistani Maj. Gen. Athar AbbasAthar Abbas told CNN authorities expect more such attacks.

"We want the people of Lahore, Rawalpindi, Islamabad and Multan to leave those cities as we plan major attacks against government facilities in coming days and weeks," Britain's Daily Telegraph quoted

Hakimullah Mehsud as saying.

The Pakistani government has posted rewards for the capture, dead or alive, of the Taliban leader in the Swat Valley and 20 of his comrades, the report said.

POSTED BY BIODUNIGINLA AT 5:16 AM LABELS: BBC NEWS. BIODUN IGINLA, PAKISTAN, PESHAWAR, SUNITA KUREISHI