Islamabad - Taliban militants let loose several suicide squads in Pakistan's heartland and the troubled north-west Thursday, killing at least 38 people, including 11 attackers, officials said. Gunmen wearing explosive vests targeted two police training centres and the offices of Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in the eastern city of Lahore, while a suicide car bomber hit a police station in the north-western garrison town of Kohat.
The coordinated attacks, which took place just after 9 am (0300 GMT), were the latest in a new series of militant violence apparently aimed at preempting a long-awaited offensive against Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters in the South Waziristan tribal district near Afghanistan.
Assaults in Lahore, Pakistan's cultural hub and capital of the densely populated Punjab province, were repelled within hours but served as a replay of the audacious weekend siege of the army headquarters in Rawalpindi that ended with 23 people dead.
Major General Shafqaat Ahmad declared "complete control" over the Elite Force Training School in Badian area, close to the Indian border, after four hours of fighting.
Five terrorists were killed - three of them blowing themselves up after getting wounded, Ahmad told reporters at the academy. Two policemen also died in the gunfight.
Earlier, there were reports of a hostage situation at the academy but Ahmad said there were no hostages, clarifying that a family had locked itself in a house when the gunmen tried to enter.
The site was only few kilometers from Manawan training centre, where a similar assault left 12 people dead. Among the dead were four terrorists, who entered the premises by scaling the parameter wall.
"Three attackers blew themselves up after a brief shootout with the police while another was killed in the exchange of fire," Lahore's police chief Pervez Rathore said.
The training centre also saw a bloody siege in March that killed 18 people, mostly police recruits.
Also on Thursday, six people, including police guards were killed when a lone gunman attacked the regional headquarters of the FIA, country's main civilian law enforcement agency. The attacker was shot dead by a guard before he could explode his vest, Rathore said.
The FIA's seven-storey building is located adjacent to its former offices, which were hit by a suicide bombing last year, leaving about 25 people dead.
A Punjab faction of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, an umbrella group of more than a dozen militant outfits, claimed responsibility for the attacks in Lahore, according to private television channels.
Shortly before the Lahore attacks, a suicide bomber rammed his explosive-laden car into the main gate of a police station in Kohat, a garrison in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), located adjacent to the troubled tribal region.
Ten people were killed in the huge blast that destroyed the police building. The remains of the suspected bomber were found on the site.
In another brutal strike, suspected militants blew up an explosives-packed vehicle in a residential area in Peshawar, NWFP's capital, killing one child and injuring two people.
"It was a remote-controlled bombing not a suicide attack," said Liaquat Ali, a senior police officer.
The Taliban have intensified attacks on civilian and security targets in recent days as Pakistani troops prepare for a major assault in South Waziristan, a mountainous district that borders Afghanistan.
Separately, a suspected US drone aircraft fired two missiles at a house in North Waziristan, another tribal district that adjoins South Waziristan, killing at least four militants.
An intelligence official who requested anonymity said the missile attack occurred near Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan.
The United States has carried out several aerial raids in the ungoverned region, while expressing frustration over Pakistan's failure to eliminate terrorist sanctuaries the Taliban use to plan and launch cross-border raids on Western forces in Afghanistan.
Dozens of militants and some second tier al-Qaeda operatives have died in the attacks.
