Suicide bombs kill 39, wound 95 in Lahore

A pair of suicide bombers targeting army vehicles detonated explosives within seconds of each other on Friday, killing at least 39 people in this eastern city and wounding nearly 100, the police said. It was the fourth major attack in Pakistan this week, indicating Islamist militants are stepping up violence after a period of relative calm.

At least six security personnel were among the dead, senior police official Chaudhry Mohammad Shafiq, said.

The bombers, who were on foot, struck RA Bazaar, a residential and commercial neighbourhood where several security agencies have facilities. Pakistan TV channels showed security forces swarming the area as bystanders rushed the injured into ambulances.

Senior police official Tariq Saleem Dogar, said 39 people were killed, and another 95 were hurt. Some of the wounded were missing limbs, lying in pools of blood after the enormous explosions, eyewitness Afzal Awan said.

“I saw smoke rising everywhere,” Awan told reporters. “A lot of people were crying.”

No group immediately claimed responsibility, but suspicion quickly fell on the Pakistani Taliban and al—Qaeda.

The militants are believed to have been behind scores of attacks in U.S.—allied Pakistan over the last several years, including a series of strikes that began in October and lasted around three months, killing some 600 people in apparent retaliation for an army offensive along the Afghan border.

In more recent months, the attacks were smaller, fewer and confined to remote regions near Afghanistan.

But on Monday, a suicide car bomber struck a building in Lahore where police interrogated high—value suspects - including militants - killing at least 13 people and wounding dozens. The Pakistan Taliban claimed responsibility.

Also this week, suspected militants attacked the offices of World Vision, a U.S.—based Christian aid group, in the northwest district of Mansehra, killing six Pakistani employees, while a bombing at a small, makeshift movie theater in the main northwest city of Peshawar killed four people.

The attacks show that the loose network of insurgents angry with Islamabad for its alliance with the U.S. retain the ability to strike throughout Pakistan despite pressure from army offensives and American missile strikes against militant targets.

The violence also comes amid signs of a Pakistani crackdown on Afghan Taliban and al—Qaeda operatives using its soil. Among the militants known to have been arrested is the Afghan Taliban’s No. 2 commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.

The Pakistani Taliban, meanwhile, are believed to have lost their top commander, Hakimullah Mehsud, in a U.S. missile strike in January. The group has denied Mehsud is dead but has failed to prove he’s still alive.

Militant attacks in Pakistan frequently target security forces, though civilian targets have not escaped.

During the bloody wave of attacks that began in October - coinciding with the army’s ground offensive against the Pakistani Taliban in the South Waziristan tribal area - Lahore was hit several times.

In mid—October, three groups of gunmen attacked three security facilities in the eastern city, a rampage that left 28 dead. Twin suicide bombings at a market there in December killed around 50 people.

15 killed in suicide bombing: Afghan police

A police official says a suicide bomber has killed 15 people in eastern Afghanistan, including a key tribal leader.

Police Gen. Mohammad Ayub Salangi, says the bomber set off his explosives next to a small group of tribal elders and government workers as they were meeting on Monday with a few hundred Afghan refugees who had recently returned from Pakistan.

He says 15 people were killed in the blast in Nangarhar province and at least 15 others wounded. Among the dead was Mohammad Zaman, an influential tribal leader in the area and a former mujahedeen fighter.

11 people killed, over 40 injured in Karachi blast

Eleven people were killed and over 40 others, many of them women and children, were injured when a blast occurred near a bus taking a group of Shias to a religious procession in the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi on Friday.

The explosion occurred on Shahrah—e—Quaideen, a key thoroughfare in the city, at 3.05 PM.

Simi Jamali, a senior doctor at the Jinnah Hospital, said the they had received 11 bodies and over 40 injured people.

There was confusion over the nature of the blast.

TV news channels quoted witnesses as saying that a motorcycle-borne suicide bomber rammed into the bus.

However, Karachi police chief Waseem Ahmed said initial investigations had indicated that an explosive device planted in the motorcycle was triggered by remote control as the bus was passing by.

Mr. Ahmed appealed for calm and urged Shia mourners to go ahead with the main procession marking the ‘Chelum’ or 40th day of the martyrdom of Hazrat Imam Hussain.

He said the blast had occurred at a considerable distance from the venue of the main procession and might have been aimed at diverting the attention of the security forces.

Ambulances and rescue workers rushed to the site and ferried bodies and the injured to nearby hospitals.

Security forces cordoned off the area and gathered the pieces of the motorcycle believed to have been used in the attack.