Suicide bomber kills 7 in Pakistan's Peshawar

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By Alamgir Bitani

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - A suicide attacker set off a car bomb at a police checkpoint in the Pakistani city of Peshawar on Saturday, killing seven people, police and hospital officials said.

The city, near the Afghan border, has been targeted several times since the army began an offensive against the Taliban in South Waziristan last month and militants stepped up retaliatory attacks.

A day earlier, a suicide car bomb exploded at an office of Pakistan's main intelligence agency in the northwestern city, killing 17 people.

"The car bomber approached a barrier near the police check post and then it exploded," city official Sahibzada Anis told Reuters.

Hospital officials said seven people were killed and more than 20 wounded. Police said two of their men were among the dead.

Pieces of the attacker's car littered the road. Several other vehicles were badly damaged with one flipped over on its roof.

The army began an offensive in South Waziristan on the Afghan border last month, aiming to root out Pakistani Taliban militants who stepped up their war on the security forces in 2007.

The militants have responded with intensified attacks in towns and cities, killing several hundred people.

The United States, weighing options as it struggles to stabilise Afghanistan, says Pakistani action against militants in border enclaves is vital for its Afghan effort.

TALIBAN CLAIM

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast, but the Taliban said earlier it had carried out Friday's attack on the Peshawar office of the military's Inter-Services Intelligence agency.

The militants claimed responsibility for a suicide bomb attack on a police station in the northwestern town of Bannu on Friday, in which seven people were killed.

"We will carry out similar attacks in other parts of the country," Qari Hussain Mehsud, a senior Pakistani Taliban member and a cousin of Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud, told Reuters by telephone.

Hussain is known as "the mentor of suicide bombers."

The military says it has killed more than 520 militants in the offensive in South Waziristan, including seven on Saturday.

Soldiers have been advancing into the militant heartland from three directions and have captured several Taliban base areas in the region of barren mountains, ravines and patchy forest.

There has been no independent verification of casualties since reporters and other independent observers are not allowed into the conflict zone except on an occasional trip with the military.

The violence in recent weeks has rattled investors and the main stock index has lost about 5 percent since the offensive began.

However, it ended 1.60 percent higher at 9,067.17 on Friday after the International Monetary Fund said the previous day the economy showed signs of recovery but risks remained.

Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin told Reuters the International Monetary Fund had expressed concern about how insecurity could affect the economy.

(Additional reporting by Augustine Anthony; Writing by Robert Birsel; editing by Andrew Dobbie)

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