Daily News Pakistan

PESHAWAR: At least seven people were killed and 30 more were injured after a blast went off in Peshawar on Friday.

‘Seven people have died and 35 are wounded,’ Sahib Zada Anis, head of the northwestern city’s administration, told reporters.

Most of them were civilians, he added.

A doctor at the city’s main Lady Reading Hospital confirmed the casualties.

A military spokesman told Reuters that a building of the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) was the possible target of the bomb attack.

The building was heavily damaged in the blast, with huge clouds of smoke spewing into the sky and debris littering the ground, witnesses said.

The road was littered with debris and tree trunks ripped off by the force of the explosion.

A security official at the scene said it was a bomb blast, but the nature of the attack was not immediately clear.

An AFP reporter saw at three bodies lying on the ground, but soldiers opened fire into the air preventing other people from approaching until army vehicles arrived on the spot and cordoned off the area.

Television footage showed scenes of panic at one hospital, with blood-stained men being admitted and relatives starting to gather outside.

‘It was the biggest explosion I’ve ever heard,’ said city resident Asad Ali.

The blast early Friday badly damaged much of the three-story building and was heard throughout the city. —Agencies/DawnNews

ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari has forwarded to the Supreme Judicial Council, references against six PCO judges from the High Courts of Lahore, Peshawar and Sindh.

The judges of the high courts against whom references were sent today to the Supreme Judicial Council are Justices Syed Shabbar Raza, Hamid Ali Shah, Hasnat Ahmed Khan and Syed Sajjad Hussain Shah of the Lahore High Court.

Refences have also been forwarded against Justice Yasmin Abbasey of Sindh High Court and Justice Jehanzeb Rahim of the Peshawar High Court.

Spokesperson of the President former Senator Farhatullah Babar said that the references have been sent on the recommendations of the Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. -DawnNews

PESHAWAR: A landmine attack and ambush killed 10 Pakistani troops near the Afghan border Wednesday, in a sign that violence is spreading away from the frontlines of a major anti-Taliban offensive.

Wednesday's deaths were reported in Mohmand, where the paramilitary Frontier Corps has been operating for well over a year against the Taliban, and after security officials warned that the militants are stepping up attacks elsewhere.

'Eight soldiers were martyred and two were wounded when their vehicle hit a landmine buried on the roadside,' Major Fazal ur-Rehman, spokesman for the paramilitary Frontier Corps, told AFP.

The attack happened on the outskirts of Safi town near the Afghan border in Mohmand tribal district, the paramilitary said.

'The soldiers were on a routine patrol. The landmine was buried by militants. The explosion damaged the pick-up,' said Rehman.

He said the incident was separate to a Taliban ambush that left two paramilitary personnel dead and eight others missing after militants attacked a another convoy nearby at Ghanam Shah on Wednesday.

Local official Rasool Khan said two security personnel, initially reported as missing, later made contact.

'A search operation is continuing for the remaining eight who are missing,' Khan told AFP by telephone from Mohmand.

Two bodies were recovered after the ambush and 10 rebels killed after attack helicopters shelled suspected militant hideouts in the area on Wednesday.

The United States has put Pakistan on the frontline of its war against Al-Qaeda and has been increasingly disturbed by deteriorating security in the country where attacks and bombings have killed about 2,500 people in 28 months. -AFP