By Kamran Haider
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A suspected suicide bomber blew himself up on Monday at a meeting in northwest Pakistan of an ethnic Pashtun nationalist political party, killing at least 15 people, a doctor said.
"At least 15 bodies and more than 50 wounded have been brought in," Wakil Mohammad, medical superintendent at the main hospital in Timergarah, the chief town in the Lower Dir district where the attack took place, said by telephone.
Police said the bomber tried to get into the ground where the Awami National Party (ANP), which heads a coalition government in North West Frontier Province, was holding a meeting but he was stopped and blew himself up.
The ANP, a member of the ruling federal coalition government, is a largely secular party and a staunch opponent of Islamist militants battling the state.
Pakistani Taliban militants have attacked ANP gatherings before.
The meeting was called to celebrate the renaming of NWFP, which the party has long demanded.
Under constitutional amendments expected to be approved in parliament this week, the province will be renamed Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, in a bid to represent its dominant Pashtun population.
"The Taliban have lost the battle and now, out of desperation, they are carrying out such cowardly attacks," said Haji Mohammad Adeel, an ANP senator.
The long-awaited constitutional amendments, which will also transfer President Asif Ali Zardari's sweeping powers to the prime minister, are due to be taken up in the National Assembly on Tuesday.
The amendments should ease opposition to the unpopular Zardari and promote political stability in the nuclear-armed U.S. ally, analysts say.
Zardari is due to address parliament later on Monday in the capital, Islamabad, where security has been stepped up for the session.
(Writing by Robert Birsel; Editing by Jerry Norton)
