A car bomb killed five people and wounded 16 today outside the home of a Pakistani official who was raising a militia to fight Islamist militants in the northwest region, witnesses and police said.
The bomb attack in the Batta Beir area on the outskirts of Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier Province, targeted the residence of the nazim, or mayor.
The blast came a day after the government in the northwest signed a pact with Islamists to introduce Islamic law in the northwestern Swat valley and neighbouring areas in a bid to take the steam out of a Taliban uprising raging since late 2007.
Militants have stepped up violent attacks in Pakistan, particularly in the northwest, since August, when government forces launched an offensive in Swat and the tribal region of Bajaur on the Afghan border.
Taliban militants killed three people and wounded two in a mortar attack in Bajaur today, a government official said.
Residents said helicopter gunships strafed militants hideouts but there was no report of casualties.
Reuters