Islamabad - A suicide bombing and a rocket attack at two security installations in north-western Pakistan on Friday killed 16 people, including three soldiers and the same number of policemen, officials said, as the country reeled from a string of militant raids. The attacks were the latest in a series of deadly strikes taking place across the country ahead of a planned offensive against the Taliban and al-Qaeda militants in the South Waziristan tribal district bordering Afghanistan.
A suicide bomber detonated an explosive-laden car outside an interrogation centre of the Crime Investigation Agency in Peshawar, the capital of Islamist militancy-plagued North Western Frontier Province.
"Up to 70 kilograms of high-grade explosives were used in the blast," the chief of a bomb disposal squad in the town Shafqat Malik said.
Hospital authorities said they received bodies of 12 people, including those of three policemen, two women and two schoolchildren. The severed limbs of the suspected bomber were found in the mangled remains of the vehicle.
Ten wounded victims were brought to the Lady Reading Hospital and one of them succumbed to his injuries, said Abdul Hameed Afridi, chief of the state-run medical facility. Three of the injured were in a critical condition.
Peshawar's police chief Liaquat Ali Khan said earlier that apparently three attackers, including a woman, detonated two bombs.
However, the media reports contradicted the claim later when the family of the killed women told reporters that she was hit by the bomb when returning from school with his father and a ten-year old sister from her school on a motorbike.
The huge explosion caused a partial collapse of the police station building and damaged a nearby mosque.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but the suspicion fell on Taliban operating from the lawless region near the Afghan border.
The private Aaj News television channel reported that the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, an organization of more than a dozen militant groups, denied any link with the Peshawar bombing.
The militants have intensified country-wide attacks at a time when the military is gearing up for what some officials call "the other of all battles" against estimated 10,000 and 15,000 well-trained, well-equipped Taliban and al-Qaeda guerilla fighters in South Waziristan.
But the rebels have already started targeting thousands of military and paramilitary troops deployed in the rugged, mountainous district.
On Friday, rebels launched a rocket attack at a military camp in Shakai area of the district.
"Three soldiers were martyred and five were injured in the rocket fire," said an intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
However, the Taliban strikes in the urban centers are often deadlier than occasional attacks in the tribal region.
More than 160 people have been killed in the latest wave of militant violence, which started with a suicide bombing at the offices of the United Nations World Food Programme in Islamabad on October 5. Five employees of the agency were killed.
The most audacious attack came at the weekend when 10 militants in military uniform laid siege to the Pakistan Army's General Headquarters in Rawalpindi. Twenty-four people, including nine raiders, died in the 22-hour standoff. One militant was arrested.
Thursday marked the most violent day as gunmen wearing suicide vests stormed two police academies and the offices of Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency in the eastern city of Lahore.
A car bomber struck a police station in the north-western town of Kohat. In all, at least 38 people including 11 insurgents were killed on a single day.
