Two blasts in Peshawar kill 5

PESHAWAR:A second blast was reported in the Pishtakhara neighbourhood of Peshawar just hours after a suicide bomber killed 4 people in the northern city of Peshawar in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa on Monday.

An improvised explosive device blew up near a police van, Express 24/7 correspondent Umar Farooq said. Three people were also reported injured.

In the first blast, four people including three police officers were killed and 11 people wounded when a teenage suicide bomber blew himself up near a police van on Kohat Road.

The police van was on a routine patrol on the outskirts of Peshawar when it came under attack, senior administration official Siraj Ahmed told AFP.

The attack killed three policemen deputy superintendent Rashid Khan, his security guard and driver while a civilian passerby also died in the blast, officials said.

We have received four bodies three police officials and one civilian, the head of Peshawars main hospital Abdul Hameed Afridi told AFP.

Another 11 people were wounded, four of them police officials, Afridi said.

The bomber was a teenager, he came on foot and blew himself up near the police van, Ahmed said.

Umar Gul, a police officer at the scene, confirmed the suicide attack.

We have recovered his head, the bomber was a young boy, he said.

A bomb disposal squad official said the bomber was carrying 6-7 kilograms (13-15 pounds) of explosives, which destroyed the police van.

The senior minister of the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Bashir Bilor, also put the toll at four dead and said militants were targeting police to pressure and dishearten them.

But he told reporters such attacks would not weaken the governments commitment to combat militancy.

W! e will c ontinue our fight against terrorism. We will not be deterred, it will only strengthen our resolve to eliminate terrorists, he added.

The Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the attack.

We have already announced that we will target police and security forces, TTP spokesman Azam Tariq said in a telephone call to AFP from an undisclosed location.

Pakistans northwest and tribal areas have been wracked by violence, mostly targeting security officials, since hundreds of Taliban and al Qaeda fighters sought refuge there after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

Some 4,000 people have been killed in bomb blasts, suicide and gun attacks since officials stormed a militant mosque in Islamabad in July 2007.

The government has claimed a number of military successes against the militants during the last two years, but attacks continue across the country and are concentrated in the northwest.

Pakistan launched its most ambitious military offensive yet against Taliban militants, in South Waziristan, in 2009, before expanding the campaign to many of the other seven semi-autonomous tribal districts along the Afghan border.

Washington says that wiping out the militant threat in Pakistans tribal belt is vital to winning the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan and defeating al Qaeda.