Bombs in north

Islamabad, July 19: Two bombs exploded in Pakistan today, one in the south and the other in the northwest, killing at least 26 people, most of them police.

A wave of bomb attacks since a siege and assault on a militant stronghold at a mosque in Islamabad this month has swept northwest Pakistan, killing more than 140 people.

But today, a bomb blast killed at least 19, including seven police, in a market place in the southern town of Hub, on the border between Sindh and Baluchistan provinces, near the city of Karachi.

It was the first such attack in southern Pakistan during this recent wave. It was unclear whether it was related to the Islamist militant backlash against the storming of Islamabad's Red Mosque, or was linked to a long-running separatist movement in Baluchistan.

President Pervez Musharraf said yesterday he had no intention of declaring a state of emergency to counter the growing insecurity, and gave assurances that elections due later this year would go ahead as planned.

Abdullah Jan Afridi, the most senior officer at Hub Chowki police station, said the policemen had been escorting a team of Chinese engineers travelling to Karachi when the blast occurred, although the vehicle carrying the Chinese had just passed by.

''The blast took place shortly after Chinese passed the area. All seven policemen in the vehicle have been killed,'' Afridi said.

Police were still investigating whether it was a remote-controlled bomb or a suicide attack.

Car bomb

In the far northwest, a car bomber blew himself up at a police training centre in the city of Hangu early today, killing at least seven people.

The government said 102 people had been killed in the storming of the mosque. Many of victims came from the volatile northwest, most of them followers of cleric brothers advocating a militant brand of Islam reminiscent of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The bomber in Hangu tried to enter the police training centre just as young recruits were going in for training.

''The attacker tried to crash through the gate. He blew himself up as security guards at the gate tried to stop him,'' said Fakhr-e-Alam, top administration official of the city.

''Six policemen and a passerby were killed.'' A police official said 13 people had been wounded.

Hangu, which itself has a history of sectarian violence, is close to Pakistan's lawless tribal regions on the Afghan border, known as hotbeds of support for al Qaeda and Taliban militants.

A large number of al Qaeda fighters and their allies fled to Pakistan's tribal areas after US-led forces toppled the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 2001.

At the same time as militants are believed to be taking revenge for the government's mosque complex assault in the capital, pro-Taliban fighters have abandoned a 10-month-old peace pact in North Waziristan, raising fears of a resurgence in violence, mainly in the conservative northwest.

Reuters>