Suspected suicide bombing kills 32 in Pakistan

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - At least 32 people were killed in a suspected suicide bombing in a market in Pakistan's volatile northwestern city of Peshawar late on Saturday, a hospital official said.

"The death toll is now 32. Ninety people have been wounded and 21 of them are in serious condition," Jameel Shah, a spokesman for Lady Reading Hospital, the main government hospital in the city told Reuters.

The bombing took place near a building which houses several newspaper offices as well as apartments.

A small blast preceded a big one which senior police official Banaras Khan said police suspect was carried out by a suicide bomber.

"A huge fire broke out soon after the second blast. I myself saw five dead bodies on the spot soon after the blast," witness Syed Alam said.

No one claimed responsibility for the attack but Islamist militants have stepped up bomb and suicide attacks across U.S.-ally Pakistan since the killing of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden by U.S. SEALs in a secret raid last month.

(Additional reporting by Kamran Haider; Writing by Zeeshan Haider; Editing by Louise Ireland)