Peshawar market suicide bombing leaves many dead

A suicide bombing at a crowded market in the north-western Pakistani city of Peshawar has killed at least 23 people, police and officials say.

The bomb went off in the centre of the city as police watched over a protest rally against power cuts.
One of the city's most senior police officers was killed. No group has claimed the attack - the Taliban have carried out dozens of recent bombings.


Earlier, a bomb blast outside a city school killed a boy and wounded others.
Monday evening's explosion happened in Peshawar's Qissa Khawani (Storytellers' bazaar) soon after the end of a rally against soaring inflation and power shortages organised by the Jamaat-i-Islami party.
Both police officers and demonstrators were said to be among the dead.

Taliban militants will be suspected of carrying out the attack.
They have recently come under increasing pressure across north-west Pakistan, as the Pakistani military carries out operations against them.

Dozens of militants have been killed, but it is clear they still have the ability to carry out violent revenge attacks, our correspondent adds.

Hundreds of people have been killed in militant attacks across Pakistan since the military launched operations against the Taliban last autumn. Peshawar has borne the brunt of this violence.

Taliban claims deadly suicide attack in Pakistan

The Pakistan Taliban claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that killed at least 13 people and injured dozens in the northwest part of the country Saturday, authorities said.
The attack at a security checkpoint in the city of Saidu Sharif injured 37, according to Ibrahim Khan, a police official in the Swat District, where the military launched an offensive against the Taliban last year. The city is near Mingora, the largest city in the district.
Khan said the suicide attacker, who was dropped off on a rickshaw, approached a checkpoint manned by police and military personnel.
Security personnel opened fire when the attacker refused to stop. Moments later, the attacker detonated explosives.

Azam Tariq, a spokesman for the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, told by phone that his organization takes responsibility for the deadly blasts in Lahore on Friday and the attack Saturday.
The Saturday blast comes a day after a twin suicide bombing on a military convoy in Lahore killed 44 people and injured nearly 100 others. Assailants targeted military convoys, approaching on foot and detonating their explosives 15 to 20 seconds apart, Punjab Law Minister Rana Sana Ullah said. Five of the dead were Pakistani soldiers, he said.
"Pakistan has become a colony of Blackwater," Tariq said, referring to the company now known as Xe Services that provided security to U.S. officials in Iraq.
"The government of Pakistan has become puppet of U.S," he added.
Tariq warned that failure to halt operations against the Taliban will lead to more attacks.
"Our 2,000 suicide bombers, who have already spread across the country, will act against security personnel and government installations," Tariq said.
Tariq said the attacks on both days were a retaliation for the killing of innocent "Mujahedeen" by Pakistani government under the orders of the United States. A Pakistani crackdown on militants has resulted in the arrests of top Taliban.
After the twin bombings Friday, a series of low-level blasts occurred in succession in the Iqbal Town area of the city that night. Three people were injured in the blasts and damage was minimal, Lahore Police said.

Earlier this week, gunmen entered a North West Frontier Province compound of the humanitarian agency World Vision, threw grenades, opened fire on the staff inside and detonated a homemade bomb before leaving, according to a World Vision statement.

New blast heard in Lahore, hours after twin suicide attack

7-blasts reported till now and one more found......



New blast heard in Lahore, hours after twin suicide attack.......details are coming...

A third explosion has rocked the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore, hours after suicide bombers killed at least 45 people and injured 100.

The earlier two attacks occurred within seconds of each other and targeted military vehicles as they passed through a crowded area.
At least nine soldiers were killed and some 100 people were wounded.
No immediate details were given of the third explosion but one report suggests it happened near a police station.

Pakistan 'suicide bombers' kill 45 in Lahore

 Two suicide bombers have killed at least 45 people in the Pakistani city of Lahore, officials say.

The attacks occurred within seconds of each other and targeted military vehicles as they passed through a crowded area.
At least nine soldiers were killed and some 100 people were wounded.
There have been several attacks on Lahore in the past year. On Monday

the Taliban destroyed a building used by intelligence services, killing 13.
The explosions took place near the RA Bazaar, in a busy residential and
 shopping area where army and security agencies have facilities.
No group has said it carried out the bombings.
'Smoke rising everywhere'
Officials said the blasts took place within 15 to 20 seconds of each other.

There are conflicting reports about whether the two bombers rode motorcycles or were on foot.
Police official Chaudhry Mohammad Shafiq said the severed heads of both attackers had been found. Suicide bombers often strap explosives to their bodies and are decapitated when they detonate.
An eyewitness, Mohammad Nadeem, said he had been praying in a mosque when he heard the first blast and rushed out only to hear a second.
"The second blast took place very near a military vehicle," Mr Nadeem, his clothes stained with blood, told AFP news agency.
"I sensed real danger and started running. There were scenes of destruction in nearby restaurants and shops.
"There were broken chairs and tables and other items lying everywhere on the ground."
Another eyewitness, Afzal Awan, said he had seen wounded people with limbs missing lying in pools of blood.
"I saw smoke rising everywhere," he told reporters. "A lot of people were crying."
Taliban threat
After Monday's attack, the Pakistani Taliban promised to unleash up to 3,000 suicide bombers across the country unless Pakistan's army stopped its operations against the militant group and US drone strikes ended.

Pakistan has been fighting insurgents in the volatile tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.
The military recently stepped up operations against the Taliban leadership, arresting the military commander of the Afghan Taliban, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who was hiding in the southern city of Karachi.
A number of other top figures in the Afghan Taliban are also reported to have been arrested across Pakistan over the last few weeks.
In the last six months, hundreds of civilians have been killed in militant attacks across the country. The BBC's Aleem Maqbool in Islamabad says there are no signs the violence is coming to an end.
Last October simultaneous assaults on three security buildings across Lahore killed 38 people.
In December, two bomb blasts at a market in the city killed 48 and injured more than 100.

Pulling loved ones out of the lure of suicide

 Americans, always fascinated by celebrity suicides, have a number of recent excuses for sympathetic voyeurism. Andrew Koenig, 41-year-old son of actor Walter Koenig, hanged himself in a Vancouver park after leaving a despondent note. Days later, Michael Blosil, the 18-year-old son of singer Marie Osmond, jumped from his eighth-floor setup after writing that his dejection had left him credit friendless.

A few years ago, Brad Delp, lead singer for the band Boston, killed himself after writing, "I am a lonely soul." South Korean supermodel Daul Kim wrote before her suicide last year, "The more I gain, the further isolated it is. . . . I know I'm like a ghost."

People seem naturally interested pull news indicating that the famous share our struggles. In this case, true is true. Suicides outnumber homicides in America, manufacture self-hatred more lethal than storm by others. sway 2009, the concernment Abuse further Mental Health Services Administration reported that 1.1 million Americans had attempted suicide during the previous year. By unaccompanied estimate, "successful" suicides have left behind 4.5 million family survivors, who live with ghosts each day.

Suicidology is a well-studied lecturer dodge. Suicide is emphatically prevalent among the young besides the lapsed. It is associated with depression, feelings of hopelessness, substance abuse and low levels of serotonin network the brain. Females shakedown suicide additional often than males. Males complete it fresh often than females. Suicide rates are leading among people who are divorced, separated or widowed, and lower among the married.

But such quantification provides distinct the illusion of operate. The mind does not experience itself as a scientific object but, rather, now an interpreter of reality. One's perspicacity can muse one's spleen objectively. One's maestro cannot deem one's brain objectively, because its judgments seem real even when they are distorted

The ingenious arguments against suicide are compelling. It causes intense mauled for loved ones that few would intend in their good mind. It is not a valid image of autonomy or choice, because it ends all autonomy also more valuable. absolute represents the tyranny of unique moment of hopelessness over every budgeted moment of possibility.

But it is the peculiar wildness of hopelessness besides brumal depression that they assailing insight besides perspective. kin power accident themselves as someone they detest and cannot escape, miss by shedding the self. fame "The Savage God: A Study of Suicide," A. Alvarez argues, "The logic of suicide is various. It is adore the unanswerable logic of a nightmare, or revel in the science-fiction fantasy of being projected suddenly note another dimension: element makes sense again follows its own rigid rules; yet, at the same time, everything is also different, perverted, upside rejected. Once a man decides to bear his own life he enters a shut-off, impregnable but wholly persuasive world setting every trace fits further each incident reinforces his decision."

due to those who yield to the thesis of the nightmare, it is difficult to equate pungent or judgmental. Empathy, savvy grace, can reach to the grave.

finally suicide is often preventable. Coping can be perceptive. Medication boundness treat underlying depression. But in toto because despair can rob nation of judgment, it may obligate inland and friends to intervene. This task is complicated by the pervasive loneliness of our society. Americans conceive emerge as supplementary mobile, supplementary reclusive and more to come to live pressure single-person households. When a 1985 survey asked, "How many confidants get you have?" the most frequent response was three. fix 2004, the indeed popular answer was zero. John Cacioppo of the University of Chicago calls this trend "frightening." It leads, he says, to a "pernicious feedback loop" in which loneliness leads to depression, which causes further relaxation and withdrawal. There are a lot of left souls.

The suicidal may actively withdraw from inland and friends or alienate them not tell unfair burdens. At some point, loved ones are tempted to respond, "Just settle over it." But persistence, in these cases, is the primary manifest of thirst and friendship. Suicide is generally preceded by warning signs: suicide threats, seeking access to firearms or pills, innumerable use of alcohol or drugs, purposelessness, rage, recklessness, bosky loss or humiliation, writing a will, giving instantly prized possessions.

Iraq suicide bomber targets hospital in triple attack

 A suicide bomber ended a series of deadly attacks in central Iraq by detonating explosives in a hospital emergency ward where victims of two earlier blasts were being treated.


At least 29 people were killed and 42 wounded in the triple bombing attack in Baquba, northeast of the capital Baghdad.

The first car bomb attack targeted a government office near a police checkpoint. Two minutes later, a second suicide car bomb went off near the party headquarters of former Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari in central part of the city.

About an hour later, as the victims of the first two explosions were being rushed to Baquba general hospital, a third suicide bomber walked into the hospital's emergency room and detonated a bomb.

 The blasts took place just four days before the country is set to hold parliamentary elections -- its second since the ouster of former President Saddam Hussein.

More than 6,000 candidates will compete for 325 seats in the Iraq parliament in the March 7 vote.
U.S. and Iraqi officials have warned of large-scale attacks in the run-up to the voting. And al Qaeda in Iraq's umbrella group, the Islamic State of Iraq, has promised to disrupt the elections.

Iraqi forces have been taking part in drills to improve their response to suicide attacks.

Baquba, the capital of Diyala province, is about 60 km (37 miles) north of Baghdad. Sunni insurgents continue to fight U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces there.