35 killed, over 100 injured in blasts in Peshawar, Islamabad

Islamabad/Peshawar, Jun 12 : Thirty-five people, including two journalists, were killed and over 100 injured when twin bomb blasts ripped through a crowded Peshawar market followed by an explosion in Islamabad, the latest in a series of attacks after the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. A first explosion lured in onlookers and emergency services before a second more powerful blast, believed to be from a suicide strike, went off in Khyber Super Market area in Peshawar, provincial capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, police said today. The first explosion at late last night was a low-intensity one caused by a timed device hidden in the bathroom of a hotel. The second blast was triggered by a suicide bomber on a motorbike, bomb disposal squad chief Shafqat Malik told reporters. Police said they had found the head and body parts of the bomber. Senior police officer Dost Mohammed said the blasts caused 34 fatalities and injured 100 people. The attack, one of the deadliest since the May 2 killing of bin Laden in a US raid, occurred in an area with popular eateries, hostels for students and residential flats. Those killed included two journalists working for English-language newspapers Pakistan Today and The News. Over 100 people, including eight policemen, were injured, some of them seriously. Hours later, an explosive device buried on the edge of a road outside the Pakistani capital Islamabad detonated, wounding three men, police said. Three persons, including a teenage boy, were injured in the Islamabad blast, police said. "It seems to be an old explosive device buried long ago under the bush and garbage," senior police official Bani Amin told reporters. "A father and his son riding a motorbike and a man travelling in a car were wounded in the blast," Amin said. Police said they are trying to ascertain the nature of the blast. The injured were taken to Polyclinic Hospital. Though al-Qaeda and militant groups have vowed to avenge bin Laden's killing with attacks in Pakistan and the US, Taliban denied they were involved in Peshawar attack. Taliban spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan told reporters in the northwest that his group was not behind the attack in Peshawar. He claimed his group targeted only the security forces and not innocent people.