A US consulate in Pakistan came under attack today, hours after a suicide bomber blew himself up in northwest Pakistan, killing at least 38 people.
Militants using a car bomb and firing weapons attacked the US consulate in the Pakistani city of Peshawar. Pakistani Taliban militants claimed responsibility for the attack on the consulate, in which eight people including three militants, were killed. No one in the mission was hurt.
The attacks underscore the danger posed by militants in the nuclear-armed US ally after a year of military offensives which have dealt the Islamists significant setbacks.
"I saw attackers in two vehicles. Some of them carried rocket-propelled grenades. They first opened fire at security personnel at the post near the consulate and then blasts went off," a witness told Reuters.
Other residents said there was an initial blast in the neighbourhood of the US consulate and they later heard two other blasts and rifle fire in the same area.
The explosions threw clouds of white smoke into the sky and residents said soldiers had cordoned off the scene and ordered people to remain in doors.
"There were three blasts. The first happened at a security post while two others about 200 metres away, near the consulate," a security official in Peshawar told Reuters. "We don't know exactly whether any attackers are left. The area has been cordoned off and forces are clearing it," he said.
The White House strongly condemned the attacks in Peshawar.
Elsewhere, a suicide bomber blew himself up at a meeting of the Awami National Party (ANP), in the Lower Dir district, about 80km northeast of Peshawar, killing 38 people, a hospital doctor said.
Police said the bomber tried to get into the ground where the ANP, which heads a coalition government in North West Frontier Province, was holding a meeting but he was stopped and blew himself up. The ANP, which is also a member of the ruling federal coalition government, is a largely secular party and opposes the militants battling the state. Pakistani Taliban militants have attacked ANP gatherings before.
The meeting was called to celebrate the renaming of NWFP, which the party has long demanded. Under constitutional amendments expected to be approved in parliament this week, the province will be renamed Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, in a bid to represent its dominant Pashtun population.
"The Taliban have lost the battle and now, out of desperation, they are carrying out such cowardly attacks," said Haji Mohammad Adeel, an ANP senator.
The long-awaited constitutional amendments, which will also transfer President Asif Ali Zardari's sweeping powers to the prime minister, are due to be taken up in the National Assembly on Tuesday.
The amendments should ease opposition to the unpopular Mr Zardari and promote political stability in the nuclear-armed US ally, analysts say.
Mr Zardari is due to address parliament later on Monday in the capital, Islamabad, where security has been stepped up for the session.
Reuters