Suicide bomber kills 19 outside Pakistan court (Roundup)

Nov 19, 2009, 11:20 GMT

   Islamabad - A suicide bomber on Thursday killed 19 people outside a court complex in Pakistan's north-western city of Peshawar, officials said, as troops pressed on with their offensive in the nearby tribal badlands.

   Forty-nine people were injured when the bomber on foot blew himself up after he was intercepted by the police at the gates of the complex, located on the city's busiest street, Khyber Road.

   Islamist militants have stepped up their bombing campaign against official and civilian targets since mid-October when Pakistani troops backed by helicopter gunships and air force jets launched a major offensive against them in the South Waziristan region.

   Abdul Hameed Afridi, head of Peshawar's state-run Lady Reading Hospital, told German Press Agency dpa over phone that the facility received 15 bodies, and four victims later succumbed to their injuries.

   'Our medics are treating 45 wounded people, four of whom are in critical condition,' Afridi said. He feared the death toll might increase.

   Police were frisking the attacker when he detonated his explosives in a crowd outside the court premises, Peshawar's top civil administrator Sahibzada Anis told reporters at the scene.

   Three policemen and some lawyers were among the dead.

   Television footage showed the site blackened by the blast, with several damaged vehicles abandoned on the road. A taxi and a saloon were seen engulfed in flames.

   Bomb disposal experts said up to 8 kilograms of explosives were packed into the attacker's vest.

   No group immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing, but Peshawar has been frequently attacked by militants after government forces moved into South Waziristan near the Afghan border to rout Taliban fighters and their al-Qaeda associates.

   A suicide car bomber targeted the offices of the Pakistan military's Inter Services Intelligence agency, also located on Khyber Road, last Friday, killing over a dozen people.

   More than 110 people died in an October 28 market bombing, the deadliest in the country during the last two years.

   Pakistani security forces have swiftly captured major militant towns in South Waziristan and are now planning to pursue the militants in numerous side valleys, ridges and dense forests.

   A military statement said Thursday that seven 'terrorists' were killed in fresh clashes in the district, where Taliban train fighters to conduct cross-border strikes on international forces in Afghanistan.

   Hundreds of al-Qaeda-linked militants of Arab as well as Central Asian origin are also believed to be using the lawless territory to plan and carry out attacks abroad.

   With the latest killing, the military-reported death toll of the Taliban rose to 555 on Thursday. The army has suffered around 70 casualties since beginning their push on October 17. The figures could not be verified independently.

   Also on Thursday, a Pakistani intelligence official said a suspected US missile strike in the troubled North Waziristan tribal district killed at least four militants and wounded five others.

   Two missiles believed to have been fired by a Predator drone around midnight on Wednesday flattened a compound in the Humzoni area, located some 15 kilometers from the district's main town of Miranshah.

   The identities of those killed were not immediately clear, according to the official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

   The United States rarely acknowledges such drone strikes, but only its military and the Central Intelligence Agency in Afghanistan are known to operate armed reconnaissance aircraft.

   Although Islamabad opposes the deployment of US drones inside Pakistani territory, these pilotless planes have killed several senior al-Qaeda and Taliban figures.

   Former Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud died in a similar attack on August 5.