Powerful blast kills at least 17 in Pakistan

PanARMENIAN.Net - A powerful blast has killed at least 17 people in the north-western city of Peshawar in Pakistan, officials say, according to BBC News.

The bomb attack Sunday, June 30, was aimed at a convoy of paramilitary forces, they said. More than 40 people were wounded, and vehicles and shops damaged.

Peshawar is on the edge of Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal region - the main militant haven from which attacks are often launched.

It has been hit by dozens of bombings and killings over recent years.

Lately, a senior police and his driver were shot dead in the city. Three days earlier, a suicide bomb attack on a neighbourhood populated by some of the city's minority Shia Muslims killed 15.

No-one has yet claimed responsibility for Sunday's bombing, but suspicion will probably fall on the Taliban, which has been waging a bloody insurgency against the government.

The attack comes during a two-day visit to Pakistan by the British Prime Minister David Cameron - who earlier called for the Taliban to engage in peace talks, as long as they renounced tactics of "terror and violence".

Although Sunday's blast apparently targeted security forces, only one vehicle in the convoy was hit and many of the dead and injured were civilians, including women and children, reports said.

The explosion was followed by an exchange of fire between Frontier Corps - paramilitary soldiers - and the armed assailants, reported Pakistani newspaper the Express Tribune.