Deadly Bomb Shakes Pakistani City

Eleven people have died and 15 have been injured by a bomb in Peshawar in north-western Pakistan, police say. A suicide bomber attacked a police investigation bureau in the Swati Pathak area, which is close to the Pakistani army garrison. Security has been tightened across Pakistan after a series of attacks in Lahore and the north-west on Thursday . About 40 people died in those attacks, the latest in a recent wave of brazen militant assaults across the country. Like Thursday's bombings, the latest strike appeared to be aimed directly at Pakistan's police services. Three officers were among those killed, the regional police chief said. The latest wave of attacks come as Pakistan's government has been claiming that Taliban militancy is on the back foot, although the army has been more cautious. But a lull that followed the killing of the leader of the Pakistani Taliban Baitullah Mehsud August 2009 has now decisively ended: in the past 12 days attacks across Pakistan have claimed at least 160 lives. Friday's attack is thought have been caused by a suicide car bomb. Peshawar was also targeted a day earlier, when a bombing killed a child and one week ago, when a deadly bomb ripped through a busy city market in the city.That attack killed at least 49 people in the busy Khyber Bazaar. Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, has seen regular bomb and gun attacks in recent years. The city occupies a strategic position on the road to the Afghan border and is the gateway to Pakistan's tribal regions, long regarded as a haven for Islamist militants. The latest wave of attacks comes as Pakistan's military prepares for what the government has said is an imminent assault on the Taliban stronghold in South Waziristan. Nuclear-armed Pakistan is under US pressure to flush out militants as President Barack Obama considers sending more troops to neighbouring Afghanistan. Stringent security measures were put in place following Thursday's attacks which also mainly targeted police but could not prevent the latest Peshawar bomb. Around the eastern city of Lahore checkpoints have been installed and a one-way system is in operation on key roads. The attacks in Lahore were the first time this year attackers struck at multiple targets in one city, says the BBC's Syed Shoiab Hasan, in Islamabad. It was also the first time simultaneous attacks had ever hit Lahore. Authorities in the capital, Islamabad, have also temporarily banned passengers from riding on the back of motorcycles and bicycles for security reasons. Meanwhile, many of the police killed in Thursday's attacks have been buried. The funerals for 11 policemen killed in one of the attacks, on Lahore's Manawan police training school, were held on Thursday night. Senior state officials and politicians attended the funeral prayers.