Five killed in blast in Pakistan's Peshawar

ISLAMABAD, Oct 20 (Reuters) A bomb blast hit a crowded shopping area in a poor neighbourhood of Pakistan's northwestern city of Peshawar today, killing five people and wounding 21 others, police said.

''The bomb was fitted in a cart parked in a crowded area, where people were busy shopping for Eid,'' Riffat Pasha, police chief in the provincial capital of North West Frontier Province (NWFP), told Reuters.

The Muslim fasting month of Ramzan is due to end on Monday, and it will be followed by the three-day festival of Eid al-Fitr.

Interior Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao said it was too early to say who might have been responsible for planting the improvised explosive device (IED).

''It seems like a locally made IED,'' he said. ''It is an attempt to create chaos and harassment.'' Islamist militants have sought to destabilise President Pervez Musharraf's government since he joined the US-led war on terrorism following al Qaeda's September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

Pakistan's tribal regions adjoining Frontier province and straddling the Afghan-Pakistan border have been the centre of a conflict in recent years, with Pakistani troops fighting Taliban and al Qaeda-inspired insurgents in the Waziristan tribal region.

Late yesterday, militants fired a rocket on a military post in South Waziristan tribal region, killing two soldiers.

REUTERS BDP VV2006