Islamabad: At least 34 people died when two bombs exploded in south and northwest Pakistan on Thursday.
Twenty six people, including eight policemen, were killed in the city of Hub in southwestern Balochistan province when a bomb exploded near a bus stop early morning, a local civic official told reporters from the scene of the explosion.
The blast took place when a bus carrying a group of Chinese engineers passed through the area. The Chinese managed to escape but many policemen escorting the bus along with local people were killed, said police officer Abdullah Afridi Afridi in Hub.
In another blast, eight persons were killed and 23 injured when a suicide bomber exploded his car at the gate of a police training centre at the city of Hangu in North West Frontier Province (NWFP), district Mayor Ghani ur Rehman said.
The bomber tried to enter the centre but was stopped at the gate where he exploded the car. Eight shops were destroyed in a separate blast at the Bajour tribal agency incident.
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.
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.
Islamabad is already under high alert following the Tuesday suicide bomb blast, which killed at least 17 people at an anti-government rally.
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has already announced a force of 30,000 security personnel to be drawn up by the end of the year to fight the extremists in Pakistan's northwestern tribal areas.
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