53 killed in bombings across Pakistan

At least 53 people have been killed and nearly 140 injured in Pakistan in separate attacks, including a deadly suicide bombing in restive Quetta city.

In the first of Sunday's attacks, at least 17 people, including four children, were killed and nearly 50 injured when a powerful remote-controlled bomb targeted a passing convoy of security forces near a busy market here in northwest Pakistan.

The blast, believed to be an IED explosion, targeted the convoy of Frontier Corps on their way to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's capital Peshawar from Kohat district but narrowly missed it.

Javed Marwat, Deputy Commissioner of Peshawar, said, "Sevnteen people were killed in the remote control blast."

In the deadliest attack, two bomb blasts near a Shiite mosque killed at least 29 people in southwestern city of Quetta. The suspected suicide bombing near Abu Talib Imambargah at the Shiite-majority Hazara town also injured over 70 persons.

In South Waziristan, a rocket attack killed four people and injured 15 others while in the North Waziristan tribal region, a roadside bomb killed three security personnel, officials said. Marwat told reporters that the injured were shifted to Lady Reading Hospital and of some of them were critical.

According to police‚ the bomb was planted in a car and was triggered when the convoy approached was passing through Badaber area of Peshawar.

Bomb disposal squad official Abdul Haq said 40-50 KG of explosives were used in the blast, which also destroyed 10 vehicles and several shops. After the blast‚ gunshots were exchanged between security forces and the terrorists. No group claimed responsibility for the attack.

President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif have strongly condemned the blast.

Image: Residents and security officials gather at the site of a bomb attack in the outskirts of Peshawar

Photograph: Fayaz Aziz/Reuters